


RED's In This Season

by Cimila



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), RED (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Humor, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Gun Violence, Kink Meme, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Injuries, Murder, Parent-Child Relationship, Protectiveness, potentially terrible Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:37:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 31,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cimila/pseuds/Cimila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy Unwin may or may not have a few gaps in his official files.</p><p>Those few gaps being his grandmother, Victoria Winslow, and his grandfather, Ivan Simanov, and all the ex-KGB aunts and uncles who've helped raise him.</p><p>It's not a problem; after all, it ain't like his work life and his home life are suddenly going to overlap due to an unforeseen, potentially world ending event.</p><p>That'd be ridiculous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> From the Kingsman kink meme (called Kinksmen, which I find delightfully funny):
> 
> Lee Unwin was the secret lovechild of Victoria and Ivan from RED, and they were none too thrilled when his involvement with Kingsman got him killed. Being the impeccable badass that she is, Victoria would not tolerate any "Dean" nonsense around her grandbaby, and let's all agree that her house is the safest place in the UK. 
> 
> Transferring it over, because this way it'll be 'not in parts and less Annoying,' to quote. Well, it's still in parts, sorry love, because I wrote this story around LJs ridiculous character limits and that's the way it's gonna stay.

She had been aiming at his head, as they face off. He hadn’t seen her betrayal coming, hadn’t even drawn his weapons. Though, she thinks secretly to herself in a place she’d never let anyone see, she does not think he would have drawn a gun on her, even if he’d been properly warned. Ivan was soft like that, soft for her, and it was going to get him killed. But she did not think on it, because she could not. She had made her choice, the only choice there was to make.

“я тебя люблю, зайчик мой.” He tells her, and she can say nothing to that, cannot respond in anyway as she pulls the trigger except,

“Always.”

She thinks maybe he heard her, despite how quietly she said it, for there is a smile on his face as he hits the ground. His head is still in tact, instead blood spreads out from his shoulder. He’s unconscious only because the fool fell badly, expecting to die. He should have died; she truly is a fool. She should have set up a perch across from where they were to meet. She cannot even comprehend what ridiculousness inspired her to do this face to face.

And now, he is alive instead of dead and she may have ruined everything. But it’s still fixable. She walks to his prone body and raises her gun again, aiming at his head once more. After a few moments, she lowers it again with a huff. This is the only option she has, the only one she can even contemplate; everything else is simply out of the question and she will not let something as banal as emotions stop her.

But she leaves without shooting him, and stopped the bleeding before she left.

She waits at her extraction point, pristine as always, gun already tucked away, and cannot help but dwell on what he thought would be his last words. Had he said them, knowing they would torment her? No, Ivan was many things, and though he could be cruel, he held no room in his heart for cruel love. He had said he loved her, called her his bunny, as he was accustomed to doing. If everything had gone as planned, those were his last words. Not of her betrayal, or words of spite, or denouncing their love.

Instead he embraced it, allowed her to raise her gun to him. Had their positions been reversed, she had no doubt she would have attempted to kill him. Then again, she didn’t think Ivan would ever let himself be manoeuvred into the same position she had found herself in. And, had he, she quietly suspected he would have found a way around it. Russians, as he would always tell her, were crafty.

Then again, he said a great many things about Russians, and she had long since stopped believing everything he said, if indeed she had ever believed a word of it.  
Apart from that Russians were capable of great love, this she knew first hand.

It wasn’t until she was back in her flat, countries away from where she’d left Ivans body, completely alone, that she allowed herself to think on why she had done it. They had known about her affair with Ivan for some time, of course there had. There were several agents, actually, who were entangled with foreign operatives. The higher ups were always looking for any chance to flip someone, and they were content to ignore any emotions that arose from such dalliances and treat them as honeypot missions. It was actually quite good of them, even if their motivations were suspect.

There was something they could not overlook, however, and it was the one thing she’d done.

She rested her hand on her still flat stomach.

She had had to make a choice between Ivan and his unborn child. She could not have them both, for that was one tie too many to something other than her country and her job. Especially when both ties, in the eyes of her bosses, could end in her flipped and all she knew spilled to the Russians. Not that she would ever do such a thing, but she understood their caution.

Had Ivan known what she was making a choice between, she rather suspected he would have asked her for a bullet to the head rather than the idiotic mercy she’d bestowed. But Ivan would never know about their child, would only know that she’d chosen her country over her love, and that was the way it should be.

With that, she resolved to put it out of her mind. It was no use crying over spilt milk, and she had enough to do without getting emotional.

She touched her stomach once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This way I can also add translations for my terrible Russian, which I couldn't really do in the kink meme because I need those characters for plot and story, damn it, not translations. If anyone knows how to make it so when you hover your mouse over the Russian the translation comes up, hit me up :)
> 
> я тебя люблю, зайчик мой - I love you, my bunny.
> 
> Also, the drop down in the tags menu that you get when you type in 'parenting' is essentially just a list of 'x characters A+ parenting' or 'X's bad/shitty parenting' and I think that says a lot about the home life of our favourite characters.
> 
> Also, let me know if I've forgotten to tag anything; I'll be updating tags as I remember things, anyway. :3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the link to the prompt + response on the kink meme, btw: http://dressing-room3.livejournal.com/405.html?thread=468117#t468117
> 
> Changed a name of a minor character because I reused it without thinking and don't want people to think it's the same character.

When Ivan woke, he could not even feel the pain in his shoulder through the elation that lit his heart ablaze.

His bunny loved him still.

He looked at the three gun shot wounds in his shoulder, and resolved that until they healed fully, he would stay away from his love completely. After that, he would still keep his distance, but if he were to check in on her every now and again, well. She would never have to know.

He knew the way Vitas mind worked, so very British. And people say that Russians are cold. No, the winter they endure only makes them burn hotter, more passionately. The English lock away their feelings. She would not imagine that he would want to see her still, after such a turn. That he wants her safe, wants to watch out for her in a way she would never have allowed had she known. She would never know, however, and so he could do as he pleased.

He would keep himself physically removed from her until she approached him again. If she ever did.

If he went to _her_ , however, he would likely be shot again.

He chuckled at the thought. His bunny had such teeth, she would rip a hole through the Kremlin if she had to. If was only the foolishness of the English which mean she had not already. For she was a woman, and they felt she was weak. Why, if any of the agents at MI-5, or MI-6, or any other lettered, British agency had ever crossed a Russian woman, they would never think so again.

And so Ivan Nikolayevich Simanov continued on with his life, and took delight in the things he usually did, though he was restless in the beginning, being relegated to desk work and the occasional interrogation whilst he healed. Months passed and he was allowed to return to his passion - his passion that was not a platinum haired, half English half Russian - a fact with which he always crowed with delight about, though she tended to ignore that she was Russian except for the advantage it gave her in espionage, in language.

So Ivan worked and worked some more, looking at his slowly forming scars in the mirror each morning, touching them when he knew he was alone in order to remind himself of the fact that, though he was alone, he was alive and loved. There was never any doubt he was loved, of course, not since she’d swept him off his feet with a kick and pinned him down on his back and had tinged slightly pink in the cheeks instead of cutting his throat.

But, sometimes, it was nice to be reminded in some way, when his Vita could not tell him herself. Not that she did so often, but he had heard it occasionally over the course of their love and it was enough to keep him until he died.

One day he looked in the mirror, and saw only scar tissue. Old, white scar tissue, no pink around the edges. He was in an even better mood that morning, and tugged on a few strings in his web. Soon he would receive word of his Vita. He was not worried, of course. She was one of the finest agents he’s ever met, a rifle in her hands was a thing of beauty and completely unlike a rifle in anyone elses.

But he worried still, as all worry about those they love, and he waited as patiently as he could for word. What he received, however, was nothing like he’d ever dreamed.

Lyonya, who passed on the information, seemed nervous that he would be displeased. Surely not! He knew what Lyonya thought, that his English woman had taken someone else to her bed, but he knew it was not true. And even if it was, what could he do? She was her own woman, she would make her own choices, and Ivan would be there at the end of everything to welcome her with open arms and love. Her and their child, for it was his child whether he had a hand in the making or not. He had no name for the boy yet, only a surveillance photo of his Vita leaving the hospital with a blue wrapped bundle. Another where the blanket was shifted slightly, showing a hand grabbing at her jacket.

When he received news of his boys name, he was overjoyed once more. His bunny and his joy.

Lee Ivanovich Winslow.

She had given him her mothers last name, because her fathers was too Russian for an English spy, but she had given their boy his name in the Russian way and he kept their pictures tight.

The first time someone tries to use his son to harm his Vita, he is not kind - but he enjoys it very much.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s rather getting to be a problem, all these attempts to use Lee to get to her. Victoria is most displeased. She’s also displeased that she only gets to deal with about half of the attempted kidnappers, the other half simply disappearing. She’d be more concerned about that except the last time one of them had disappeared, she'd seen Mikhail of the KGB trying to subtly blend in with the crowd whilst a car drove off from where he was stood on the side walk, despite the fact that there were only three other people on the street and he was half a foot taller than any of them.

He tried to avoid her eye contact, but she raised an eyebrow at him and he turned to face her.

“Mishka.” She said, knowing him quite well already. He was not quite suited to espionage, on account of how large he was, but he played the bumbling student well enough, and she’d seen him fight off twelve Swiss operatives on his own while laughing, so she was not quite surprised to see him working outside of the U.S.S.R. She wished she was surprised to see him near her home, bundling the most recent intruder off to who knows where.

(With Mikhails appearance, she knows exactly where, and feels a bit smug at the thought of the pain the man is about to go through.)

Mikhail manages to withstand her look for all of six seconds, which is actually quite impressive. He’s a good man, if young, and she apparently reminds him of his mother, a lady who he’s never been able to withstand if Ivan had spoken correctly.

“He finds it amusing that these people are too cowardly to attack you head on, but it enrages him that they target…” He trails off, unsure how to finish the sentence in a way that isn’t presumptuous.

“His son.” She confirms softly, and Mikhail smiles like a puppy. She shakes her head at him, this barely of age young man who thrives in violence but looks like the world has been handed to him when she passes over Lee, after she’s invited him inside her flat.

He’s careful, large hands as gentle as he can be, and he beams down at the boy who, in another life, he would have been an uncle to. She gets her camera and takes a photo, surprising Mikhail. Perhaps… perhaps not just in another life, but in this one, too. Lord knows he’s as stubborn as any Russian she’s ever met, and now that she’s introduced them, now that he’s holding the boy in his arms, it’s likely that nothing could pry him away.

Ivan was not supposed to know, it would have been better that way. But if he’s stealing off people who attack his son, there’s no hope for it.

While Mikhail coos at Lee, she gathers up a few negatives she’s already gotten prints of and slides them in an envelope, giving it to Mikhail when he leaves. She doesn’t have to say anything, and he takes them with a soft smile on his face.

“I think I’ll be changing Lees last name, soon, and moving. The exposure has grown too much and I will be taking precautions and preventative measures.” She says, knowing he’ll pass this along as well as the negatives.

“He is also...taking measures to ensure your sons safety.” Had she been anyone else, she may have teasingly asked about _her_ safety, but she knows it is a sign of his respect for her that he doesn’t try. Mikhail smiles then presses a kiss to her cheek, before he’s off in the night. She can’t help calling out,

“Wrap your scarf more firmly or you’ll catch your death.” His boisterous laugh echoes back at her as bulky frame strides away.

“Yes, Mama!” He calls back, and she cannot help the twitch of her lips at the cheek of him.

She had missed him, and all those she had grown to know through Ivan.

She missed Ivan most of all, but thought little on it. She had her son and her work, and those annoying kidnap attempts on top of it. She had no time to daydream, and certainly not about high ranking KGB officials. Still, next time she sees Mikhail, there are a few pictures of her with Lee, and she cannot regret it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that originally, (H)Unwin was a name essentially meaning bear-friend? (Hun being bearcub and wine equating to friend) And what is Russias animal symbol?... Which actually works really well with this crossover. Also Helen Mirren is half Russian, thus the head canon that Victoria also is, though she doesn’t advertise it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I got sick of making new chapters after three, so sue me. It's now just copy/paste from my word doc, rather than the kink meme. Still split up into sections, but more than the individual ones, and not all in once clump either. Hopefully a nice mix. I've split it up the way I posted it actually; a new chapter for each run of posts, so some will be smaller than others.

Ivans method of preventative measures include torturing some of the men who’d gone after Lee and leaving them on the doorsteps of their organisations. It works rather marvelously and after a few months there are no more attempts. Word quietly makes the rounds that it was only a warning and any further attempt of the sort will meet with the wrath of both Victoria Winslow and Ivan Simanov. 

They are not faced with any more attempts for almost a decade, and it’s quite a peaceful time. Ivan does not get to meet his son, it would be impossible, but he uses his network to trade letters and photos back and forth, so he sees his son grow. Once there was a telephone call which Ivan will never forget. His son, his joy, had sounded so sweet on the phone, slipping between English and Russian in a way that almost made him weep. He sounded properly Russian, too, and Ivan wondered if that was the result of being taught by his Vita or by his agents, but he thinks it may have been both, regardless of his Bunnys reluctance to own up to her heritage.

The first time he hears his sons voice it does not ask him questions or ask who he is, instead he hears, 

“Hello Papa.” And Ivan, one of the most feared men in the KGB, breaks into tears. His son knows him, he finds that Lee has been shown pictures and told stories by all of his aunts and uncles, and by his mother most of all. His agents had not told him this, but he finds he cannot mind the deception too much. They speak for hours, until it is past what he knows is Lees’ bedtime, Nastya having faithfully related every experience of babysitting whilst his Vita works. Eventually, his son is yawning more than talking, and he says goodbye. There is no immediate dial tone, however, just silence.

Ivan takes his chance.

“I love you.” He says quietly, and there is the sound of a sudden huff of breath on the other end where there had been nothing moments before.

“You are a fool, Ivan.” She informs him crisply, and he can do nothing but laugh at hearing the voice of the woman he has so missed, laugh or he will cry again.

“My bear,” She says, softer still into the phone, this likely once in a lifetime opportunity for a secure line. He may never hear her beautiful voice again, he realises, and Ivan can do nothing to stop his sorrow.

“He looks nothing like you.” She chuckles, and he knows. Their boy is pretty, like his mother. None of the large, Russian frame that Ivan got from his father.

“Except his eyes. He has your eyes, my fool.” There is silence, then, comfortable in the way their silences always were, but heavy with the knowledge that this could be it.

“I never want you unhappy.” He tells her, and she scoffs, but it sounds a little wet. She is crying for him, for them, and he closes his eyes to prevent his own tears from falling yet again.

“The only way I could be unhappy is if I saw you again.” She bluffs, as she always does, and he appreciates her bluster more than ever.

“Then I will have to stay away, to keep the smile on your face.” His Vita is silent once again, and he thinks in this, maybe, he should not have pushed her so.

“Stay away, then, and be safe. I would say I never wish for your unhappiness, but I do not think I have ever seen you sad.” She tries to lighten the tone of their conversation, leave it on a happy note, but he cannot do it, not this time.

“I have never been so full of sorrow, Зайчик мой.”

“If you die before you meet Lee, before you meet our son, face to face I shall never forgive you.” She warns him.

“One day, bunny, one day.” He says, and they spend a few more minutes in silence before they end the call. They do not need to say goodbyes, nothing so final in a world so dangerous. He does tell her that he loves her once more, before he places the phone back in its cradle and, this time, she responds,

“I love you.”

#

Lee Unwin was a very peculiar child. He had more Aunts and Uncles than almost any other children in his class, and no father. He did not mind the teasing, found the humour in it and often poked fun of his own extended family, to which they responded with what his mother called ‘typical Russian grumbling.’ Though, for all his classmates thought he lacked a father, he knew he had a father. He received birthday cards every year, Christmas cards, Easter cards, cards for every occasion his father could possibly think of. Lee kept them all in his room in a little box. The would spend their time on the mantle, and then be put away when the next one inevitably came.

And then there were the letters, so many letters he sometimes wondered how his father found the time to write them all. And if sometimes the letters had little splatters of blood on them, or were a bit singed, well, Lee knew perfectly well what his family did.

There is a semi-successful kidnapping attempt when he is thirteen on his way home from school. Successful because they did manage to catch Lee. Semi- because they did not manage to evade his mother. He was congratulated by several uncles on the way he’d broken one of his captors noses and torn the ear off another before he’d been subdued, and the rest of them designed a new training regime so that he would be better prepared next time.

Uncle Mishka took several photos which his mother claimed were in bad taste, having Lee pose next to the corpse with the ripped off ear, with scratches on his face and blood pooling from his eye, which had also been Lees work. It did not stop her from beaming proudly in the background, however, and the next letter Lee received from his father was glowing with praise. In a separate letter to his mother, which Lee would never know about, Ivan begged Victoria to send him the ear so he could have it placed on his mantle. She refused, of course. It looked quite fine on hers, after all.

All in all, he had a better home life than many of his peers and one of the most doting fathers, even he was if technically an absentee father.

Lee grew up, as all children do, to the dual disappointment and excitement of his parents and aunts and uncles. Death was a natural part of life, and he did not fear it, though he mourned when aunts or uncles would go away on ‘business trips’ and not return. He grew into a fine and moral man, which his aunt Nastya often despaired over, but even she was secretly pleased, though she would deny it and try to tempt him to come to the Kremlin and train a bit, just a little.

And, as many children turned young adults do, he fell in love.

Lee Ivanovich Unwin, formerly Winslow and never officially Simanov, met Michelle Froggart when he was sixteen. She’d just gotten a job at the corner shop, and he completely forgot what he’d been sent to fetch when he laid eyes on her. She smiled at him and asked if she could help, and the only thing Lee could think to say was,

“Всё, что мне нужно - это твоя любовь.” Which, really. All I need is your love? When he tells his mother later, she laughs so hard she almost falls off her chair, and says he reminds her of his father.

“So quick to fall, the pair of you. And equally, _stupidly_ romantic.” She laments, before calling uncle Mikhail, whos laughter Lee can hear through the phone.

Luckily for Lee, however, Michelle doesn’t speak Russian. And, even better, she isn’t put off by his use of it. She’s fifteen and likes the attention of the pretty boy with the working class accent who can speak a language she’s never heard of and, on occasions, sounds so posh she feels out of place. So when he asks her out, she agrees, and they date.

The language, she finds out, is Russian. Her father doesn’t like it, frowns every time Lee comes over, and spends a long time ranting about communism and Ruskies and the red devil. Michelle doesn’t know what he’s on about, and asks Lee, who doesn’t hesitate to fill her in. He knows all about the Iron Curtain and prejudice, of course, in a way that only happens when it impacts on your life. She likes that he doesn’t try to shield her from anything, the way her father does, that he’s always honest with her.

She likes the way his smiles at her, the way he looks at her, like she’s the only person in the world.

#

His family’s a bit much, though. At first at least. Well, not at first. At first it’s only his beautiful mother, who speaks the Queens English beautifully enough that it makes Michelle want to learn in a way she never wanted to before. All around, she’s a bit intimidating, and the blank way she looks at Michelle when they’re first introduced and say, blandly,

“Well then.” Makes her want to run out and cry, because of course Lees mum wouldn’t approve of _her_. They live in such a nice house, and she knows how smart Lee is, how he can slide through languages and accents like it’s a game, like it doesn’t mark him for better things that a silly, lower class blonde girl who works at a corner shop and who’ll probably never get a better job.

She excuses herself to the bathroom instead of running out, because she has a spine, thank you very much, and if she leaves now she’ll never have the respect of Lees mother. She’s on her way back, however, when she accidentally overhears them. Victoria’s speaking quietly, but Michelle actually has quite good ears.

“She’s quite beautiful, and if she’s anything at all like you’ve told me, well, we’ll get along splendidly.” She feels all her worries melt away and resolves to ask Lee why she was so emotionless upon first meeting. Lee just laughs, shakes his head.

“She’ll deny it, but it’s a Russian thing. Testing your metal. You should hear what she did to my father. You’ll get the same off my aunts and uncles, of course, but just be yourself and they’ll love you like mum does.” He hesitates, then takes her hand.

“Like I do.” It’s the first time he’s ever admitted it (in English, any way, but she’ll later find out that he’d been saying it to her in Russian since half a week after they met, silly man.)

Meeting the aunts and uncles is supposed to be a low key affair, perhaps going to tea or dinner with them, one or two at a time. Instead she arrives at Lees home and a quietly frantic Lee meets her at the door.

“So. Change of plans, my sweet.” He shoots a look back into the house, frowning, before he turns back to her.

“They’re all here. All of them. Even aunt Maria who’s actually supposed to be dead.” He says, and Michelle blinks.

“What?” She asks, because that makes no sense, but Lee continues on without answering her, speaking in Russian as he does sometimes when he’s particularly emotional and it takes a few moments for him to catch on and repeat himself in English.

“Trust me, my love. Just, don’t let them intimidate you. That’ll delight them too much.” He says, rolling his eyes. It’s not quite a comfort, but she does trust him, so they head into the house.

There are at least fifteen people waiting in the living room, perched at various places around the room, Victoria in the center of it all, pouring tea and commanding them like a queen. That makes her feel better, actually. Especially watching Victorias comparatively small frame order around a giant of a man. They all turn to stare at them, at her, but she steels herself.

If she can sit through her fathers hundredth lecture on the evils of the U.S.S.R and everything that it’s ever produced, she can let them stare at her without trembling.

#

Michelle is sixteen when she unknowingly faces down some of the best assassins and agents and all around human weapons that the KGB has ever produced, and raises an imperious eyebrow at them after a minute of silence.

“You’re about to spill tea on the sofa.” She tells a man who’s leaning over the back of the sofa, tea cup listing to the side. He straightens his hand immediately, shying away from the glare Victoria sends him, and the largest man in the room breaks out in great, booming laughter. That’s the ice broken, and smiles break out across the room, chuckles following as the man, Viktor - Vitya as he soon told her to call him, as everyone else does - takes two steps away from the white sofa, grip on his tea cup visible from where Michelle was, across the room.

She’s introduced to everyone, the names coming out a bit clunky on her tongue, and later she makes Lee practice with her until she can even say Pyotr and Yevgeny without stumbling. Lee laughs but obliges, and tries to teach her a few things in Russian, waxing poetic about the vibrancy of the Russian language. She tells Victoria about it, later, and the woman rolls her eyes.

“Just like his father,” She says, and then looks at Mikhail who’s utilizing her kitchen to make something Russian which Michelle’s never heard of before, “Though this one can be just as bad.” She says, as if divulging a secret, and Mikhail protests.

Soon enough she has to learn a whole new set of names. She doesn’t quite get the hang of Russian nicknames, but likes the inclusion, likes being part of their family. Lee, she finds, gets called Vanya often, and she can’t make tails of heads of it. He teases her for a few days after she first hears it, before he tells her that he’s also been named for his father, Ivan, and it comes from that. He speaks about his father often, and always in the current tense, and one day she asks him.

"Trapped behind the Iron Curtain," he tells her, and she holds him close because she’s never seen him so sad.

“I’ve never met him.” He confesses, but tells her of a phone call, long enough ago to feel half like a dream, and she cries the tears which he can’t seem to manage.

“One day, maybe.” He grins at her, then, giving her a light peck on the lips.

“He’d love to met you. You’re exactly the type of woman he likes. Happy, fiery. A handful. You’d put him in his place, right quick.” He tells her and she laughs at him.

“I’ll put your in your place, more like.” She says, and Lee grins at her.

“What’s my place, Mishen’ka?” He asks her, and she knows he’s butchering Russian naming customs to give her a nickname like that, but she likes the way he says it, so full of warmth and love.

“Right here, I think.” She says, tightening her arms around him, and he smiles at her like she’s his whole world.

There’s little that Michelle likes more than being wrapped up in Lees embrace, and she finds that she doesn’t care about all the things which are off about his family, about Lee himself. Like how sometimes the dirt under Vityas nails looks more like blood than soil and grime, and how Mishka goes away for weeks at a time and returns with his face half beaten in but smiling like he came out on top. How sometimes Lee will leave with his mother on a business trip, and never quite tells her what they do, the only hints she gets being how he smells a little like blood, a little like smoke, if he goes straight to her instead of having a shower first.

Honestly, if she’d ended up with someone from the lower class neighbourhood she’s from, it’d likely be the same. Most everyone gets involved with something unsavoury, sooner or later, be it drugs or gangs or what have you. And Lee, at least, never lies to her, never tries to pretend that he’s doing something else; he just evades the question artfully, so that she never quite realises it to later.

Lee, on his part, doesn’t like lying to Michelle about anything, so he doesn’t. He talks in the way Nastya helped him learn, then perfect; talking around, misdirecting, never outright lying. To make up for the deception, he never tries to lie to her in any other area of their lives. If she asks him a question, he’ll answer it fully and truthfully, even if he probably should utilize tact, sometimes.

#

They get married before she turns eighteen, actually, which she’d thought her father would protest. She needed his permission, after all, and they’d decided to ask even though she knew she’d have to wait. But when she asked him, he looked at her for a long while and then said,

“That Ruski bastard is ‘oo you want?” She nodded, told him she’d never love anyone as much as she loved him, and he sighed.

“Guess I better stop calling his a Ruski bastard, then.” And he sounded so put upon, so completely melodramatic, that the only thing Michelle could do was laugh and hug him. Lee almost fell out a window when she proposed to him, in Russian no less.

“Ты выйдешь за меня?” She asked, and he didn’t say anything for kissing her, not even a quick yes. There was applause from his aunts and uncles, and Victoria had a camera in one hand, recording the moment. Mikhail was almost in tears, and muttering in Russian. Vitya told her later he was saying how good he was at teaching Russian, how good and pure the syllables sounded from her lips. She only half believed him, having long since learnt from Victoria disbelief is the wisest course of action when Russian men open their mouths.

He pulls away and it takes about four ‘да’s before he switches to English and crows ‘yes’ to the rooftops.

Her father walks her down the aisle, and if he’s crying, well, he’s in good company, Mikhail wailing in a way he assures her is properly Russian, which Vitya and Zhenka dispute because they’re not wailing, they’re crying ‘the solemn tears of proper Russian men, you’ve spent too long in England Mikha.’ Natya laughs at them both, calls them babies, and assures her that she, at least, will compose herself properly. And she does, admirably, until Lee starts his vows, and she joins Mishka in his wails.

Victoria is, of course, perfectly composed. Michelles mother died a few years back, and she’s easily commandeered the position of mother of both the groom and the bride. She has her upper class, stiff upper lip composure, and a video camera in one hand, as she tends to have at important occasions. Lee told her that she records everything so she can give it to his father. He doesn’t say ‘when/if they meet again’ - because, of course, he receives regular updates - but that’s what Michelle hears and it makes her even fonder of her soon to be mother in law than she already is.

Victoria is perfectly straight laced during the reception until it’s time for speeches. She goes first, and it’s a beautiful speech, with only a passing mention of Lees father, if her voice wobbles a bit, no one bats an eye. Mishka stands up next, and he has them all in stitches and, since it’s a small wedding, just their closest friends and family- Well, mainly Lees family, as she’s only got her father and uncle- everyone takes a chance to make some sort of speech. Her father opens with the words ‘this bastard Ruski,’ but it’s not as bad as it sounds, because he ends up giving his wholehearted approval at how happy he makes her, and it has her in tears again.

Once it’s over, she never thought she’d see such a spectacle again, drunk Russians shouting and drinking, and thinks she sees Petya pull out a pistol at some point, but Nastya has her husband in hand, and she doesn’t see it again. She raises an eyebrow at Lee, who just shrugs.

“Russians.” He says, and it’s his standard answer for everything inexplicable; she’s so happy she just laughs.

Of course, even the wedding of the century could not have prepared her for the circus that followed the announcement of her pregnancy.

Maria, the aunt who Michelle remembers is supposed to be dead - she thinks she might be starting to understand why, even though she never asked - gets this look in her eyes that would scare Michelle if it were almost anyone else. The next time she sees Maria, the woman has changed her sleek purse for a carpet bag, and pulls balls and balls of yarn out, along with some already finished baby clothes.

She’s pretty sure most of her family are Russian spies, or something of the sort, but it doesn’t stop her from grabbing Maria into a hug; doesn’t stop her from loving her family, because they’re the best anyone could ask for.


	5. Chapter 5

If you’ve ever seen headless chickens before, then you know what a group of infamous KGB agents look like when Michelle announces that her water’s broken.

“I don’t have to go the hospital right away, the contractions have barely started.” She tells them, but it doesn’t stop Mishka, Vitya, Petya, Zhenka and Nastya, surprisingly, from scrambling to pack a bag for her to take to hospital. Each of them packing a different bag. She watches them with Victoria and Maria, all of them completely bemused at their antics, while Lee phones the aunts and uncles who aren’t currently at the house. He gets a few voice mails, but Michelle can tell when someone picks up because there’s always some sort of ruckus on the other side, clearly audible through the phone.

Her favourite response was Radeks; he swore loud enough through the phone that they could hear him on the other side of the room, which cut off with the sound of a bullet, in response to which Radek started to shout in a language that was not Russian, and the sound of rapid gunfire for almost a minute, during which time every person in the room carefully and suspiciously avoided eye contact with her. Radek ended the call with a jolly, 

“Be there ASAP, give Michelle and your mother my love.”

The aftermath of the call was so awkward until Michelle burst out laughing.

“Lord, for KGB spies, or whatever you are, you’re terrible at hiding it.” There’s a moment of hesitation, before Victoria breaks out laughing.

“Oh Darling, you continue to amaze.” She said fondly, covering Michelles hand with her own.

“Though, I am MI-6, rather than KGB, like the rest of them.” She winks, and Michelle can’t help but laugh again. This family, this crazy family - her crazy family. Now that it’s been confirmed, she briefly contemplates telling her father that he was right all along, and they were Russian spies. The fantasy is quite amusing.

Now that they’re not trying to hide it anymore, Petya starts openly packing guns into the hospital bag he was preparing, rather than the subtle way he’d been doing it before. Nastya shakes her head at her husband, slapping his hands away from the guns and pulling them out.

“Stupid man, guns have too much potential for collateral damage in a hospital.” And starts packing the bag with knives instead.

“If it’s any consolation,” Maria says dryly when they’re on the way to the hospital, their car with herself, Victoria, Lee and Maria, being followed by a mini-van stuffed full of KGB agents, “Your child will grow up in the safest house in Britain, if not Europe.” Michelle chuckles between her contractions.

“Rather more importantly,” she informs Maria, “they’ll grow up in the most loving.” Marias eyes grow wide, and soft, and she pets Michelles hair as delicately as she knows how. Michelle knows that her inherited aunts and uncles kill people regularly, and that they are violent and dangerous and most likely enjoy every second of it; knows that they are also likely severely damaged. But they are always good to her, and try their best, so even if some of Marias strokes are a bit too forceful, it still makes her smile. Lee, in the passenger seat, catches her eyes in the rear view mirror, and they share a smile.

Fourteen hours later, Gary Aleksandr Unwin was born, and the first hour it was just Michelle, Lee and Gary, the small little boy who was the light of their lives already. After that hour, though, Victoria could not keep everyone out of the hospital room and was, in fact, leading the charge. The hospital staff were, fortunately, smart enough to step aside and only mutter under their breath about how many people were allowed in the room at a time.

One nurse glared at Mishka as he walked past until he opened his bag and pulled out a large, crocheted babys blanket which was lopsided and, upon closer inspection, had dried blood stains in patches. Her glare melted away after that, and Mishka received the best treatment of the lot after he wrapped little Gary into it securely. When Michelle looks pointedly at the blood, he just shrugs his massive shoulder, face creasing in wrinkles as he smiles.

“Is hard to find time between missions, so I make time where I can.” She ignores Vitya muttering, ‘like while sitting on corpses’ and smiles at him instead.

#

Three hours after that, Radek swept into the room with his usual flair and dramatics, announced Gary the cutest baby he’d ever seen apart from the photos he’d seen of Lee (having been too young to have witnessed it himself) before declaring that he wouldn’t touch the baby until it could hold its own head up.

But, he said, he’s found someone who’d like to.

And in walked Ivan, laden with what looked to be every plush toy he could get his hands on, and a smile wider than the sky. Michelle’s only ever seen pictures before, and he looks older now than he does in any of them, but she can see enough of Lee in him to pick him straight away, and the fact that Radek introduced him so dramatically would have let her know had she been blind.

“My Bunny.” He said first, gazing at Victoria in a way that Michelle knew well, for Lee wore the same expression when he looked at her. The he looked towards the bed, where Michelle and Lee were, the baby currently fast asleep in the arms of Vitya who was fending off Mishka with a small knife. Michelle would be more worried about that but not only was she exhausted, but she trusted them with her son.

Additionally if their actions got Gary hurt, she’s pretty sure they wouldn’t live long enough to regret it. Or, they would live a very, very long time and feel regret every second of it. Depends who got hold of them first, she imagines. There’s a second of realisation that she probably wouldn’t have been so calm about that a few years ago, and that being with Lee and his family has changed her, before she accepts it and moves on.

“My son.” He says and there’s such happiness in every part of him she’s surprised he isn’t glowing with it. He walks forward, and Lee gets off the bed, and they get tangled up in one of the most emotional hugs she’s ever seen. She can’t help but crying silently, tear slipping from her eyes, smile on her face. They’re speaking in soft Russian to each other, and Michelle’s knows that they only way it could be better was if her father was here, but he’d been persuaded by his new girlfriend to go on holiday to Glasgow, though she expects he’s driving like a madman on a highway at this very moment, racing towards London and this very room.

Ivan turns to her, next, and his smile is just as warm.

“My daughter.” He pronounces and very carefully gathers her up into a hug, mindful of her weary body.

It takes one look for Vitya to hand over Gary, and then Ivan is sitting on the edge of her bed cradling him, running a large hand over his head and smiling through his tears.

“I didn’t think…” He begins, and then Mishka is crying as well, and Michelle finds she’s crying again. Victoria looks exasperated, but fond. She lays a hand on Ivans broad shoulder and shakes her head.

“You are a fool.” She declares imperiously, and he looks up at her with so much love that Michelle cannot even comprehend what it must have felt like to be separated for so long.

“Ah, зайчик мой, but I am your fool, am I not.” Victoria heaves a lady like sigh, before the corner of her lips curls in a smile.

“I suppose.” 

It’s explained later, after she’s slept for twelve hours and everyone had had a chance to hold the baby at least three times (none would settle for any less; even Radek for all he had professed his disdain for children.) Ivan was able to leave the Kremlin and his web of… (here he trails off, looking at Michelle out of the corner of his eyes. Michelle can already see Radek and Petya making bets on how long it’ll take Ivan to figure out she knows), well, leave his web, because the Soviet Union is falling.

“It’s not completely gone, not yet, but give it time. It is not so important for me to be there now, I must go back soon of course, but things will unravel well enough without me there.” He chuckles. He’s right, of course. Later that year, on Christmas, actually, the USSR officially ends. Instead of a card that year, Lee receives his father at his new home.

Michelle finds that her life, while not perfect, is everything she’d always wanted. All the things she’d only dared to dream about when she met Lee, she had them. She’d foolishly assumed that nothing would ever change; and then Lee joined the marines.

Five years later, he’s dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was shorter than anticipated.


	6. Chapter 6

Victoria swears she’s going to rip the agency apart with her bare bloody hands, and if it had been about any other matter, Ivan would be admiring his love.

Except it is his son who is dead, also. His grandson who will grow up without a father. His daughter who hasn’t stopped crying since she was told. His grandson who has asked when his papa is returning, because he has something to show him.

Ivan has dealt with death before, has had many close friends die.

But this is his son.

His only son.

His joy.

Ivan will help his Vita tear them apart at the seams.

-

It is unfortunate that they do not get to go ahead with their plans, for someone perhaps catches wind of their intentions - it is not as if they have been subtle about it - and the organisation sinks deep underground. They do not even have a name to go off, so they must find a way to grieve the way others do, without revenge and satisfaction.

Ivan knows the rest of their family feel as lost as he does. For all that they had been colleagues, maybe even friends, before Vita had birthed Lee, his little boy had been the glue that bound them together. He made them a family.

And now he was gone.

Ivan does not know how to come to terms with it, and his Vita does not know how to cope with it, and all of their friends are similarly at loose ends.

Michelle, in the end, is the only one who is able to grieve properly. She’s not one of them, not a killer; has never felt the satisfaction of gutting someone who has wronged her. In this way, she is the strongest of them all.

He still loves his Vita, he could never stop, but they need time away from each other now, for all that they’d spent so many years apart already. He leaves London, leaves the UK, and listens to Michelles angry phone message again and again until he could recite it word for word. He falls back into the pattern he’d established with… with Lee, he writes Gary - Eggsy as Lee had always called him, a ridiculous English nickname from his proper Russian middle name - and sends him cards and pictures. The only difference is he can visit, as well. He arrives in time for birthdays, sometimes for Christmas.

He’s there for important gymnastic meets, and he gets to watch his grandson grow into a fine man. He just wishes that his son could see it.

He retires soon after his sons death, heart turned away from killing in a way nothing else had been able to manage, and takes a consulate job in America.

Of course, he regrets the decision soon after, for once he works through his grief, he misses killing. But he does not go back, to the job or to England; he has made many, many beds - it is time he finally laid in one.

#

Victoria first meets Dean when she drops off her dear little Sasha from gymnastics training. Almost ten, he was brilliant at it. It did her heart good to see him excel, to see him thrive and be happy. She’s a bit glad Ivan ran off with his grief like he did, or he’d know about how she called him Sasha and San’ka and Sashen’ka; so very Russian, but Lee had loved all parts of his heritage, had chosen a strong name for his son, and she would honour that.

If it amused her everytime Sasha pouted and whined ‘it’s Eggsy, Baba,’ well, she would say no one had to know, but everyone knew. She raises an eyebrow every time he calls her old woman, and he just grins at her. She’s quite sure that he’ll address her correctly as soon as she addresses him correctly. She’s just as sure that neither of them will ever make the change; it’s almost a ritual now. Comforting in the way she’s starting to like, in the way which shows her age. But she’s retired now, mostly, and she can do whatever she wishes. And if she wishes to get sentimental over her grandson, it’s her right.

If she wishes to cut Michelle's boyfriend Dean from neck to navel, well, surely that should be her right too?

He’s the first man she’s dated since she lost Lee, and Victoria cannot fault her for moving on. She’s spent her time grieving, she deserves to be happy. They all know Lee would want her happy.

Except, there is something in the mans eyes that she doesn’t like, but she holds her tongue. Not because she’s content to let Michelle make her own mistakes, goodness no, she’s not that kind of woman. But because this way when Dean disappears, Michelle will not think to tie her to it.

So she smiles and shakes his hand, and calls Mishka to help dispose of the body because she is starting to feel her age and Dean is not a small man. She didn’t have all night to frame a mugging gone wrong, after all, and Mikhail was almost a decade younger than her. He was happy to help, as always.

“Another job well done, Mama.” He says when they’ve set it up. They’ve split the money between them, not that they need it, and will hand off his gaudy gold chains to the nearest homeless person they see. Cut and dry mugging gone wrong, though she wishes she could have cut him open and seen what was inside, she’d satisfied herself with the artless stab wound needed for the farce.

Victoria looks at Mishka, one of her dearest friends, and finds it does not hurt her heart to hear him call her Mama, as he has not done since Lee died.

“Let’s go to the pub. First round on Dean, here.” She sneers at his body and Mishka smiles, throwing a large arm around her small shoulders.

Perhaps she should have waited until she had definite proof that Dean was bad news, but she’d never discounted her gut before, and was not about to start when it involved her family. Michelle is upset, of course, but they’d only been dating for a few weeks and she’s not too heartbroken.

If her Sasha, her pretty little Gary who looks so much like his father, doesn’t look convinced, well, he’s a smart boy and he holds his tongue in any case.

She and Mishka celebrate a job well done when the police report turns out that Dean was bad man. Not as bad as they were, of course, but bad in his own way, involved with drugs and gangs, with charges of domestic violence in his past. And if her hand ends up in Mishkas at the end of the night, well, that’s no business of anyones, is it?

#

Eggsy Unwin knows his childhood was fucked up. He used to spend time comparing his life to that of his friends in secret, looking at the way they had both parents, usually both grandparents, and only occasionally more than five or six aunts and uncles, but more often three or four. They’d play on sports teams and do activities with their dads, and their mums would pack them lunches and it was all so ordinary. So normal.

Eggsy didn’t have a dad to play with, but when he was young he’d had fifteen aunts and uncles who were always eager to play with him. The number dwindled to seven by the time he’d turned fifteen. He’d been to Russia eight times for funerals, knew how to lay someone to rest in Russian in a way he didn’t know how to translate into English. His grandfather lived in America and visited occasionally, but he was a kind old man, who loved to dote and gave Eggsy everything he wanted. His grandmother was a classy lady, but she’d get a restless, wild look in her eyes sometimes that he won’t understand until he’s seventeen and watches her kill someone for the first time.

His mother doesn’t pack his lunches because she’s a shit cook. Sometimes she can’t even make a sandwich right, which Eggsy actually finds hilarious. So his Uncle Mishka, who is probably Eggsy favourite and the only one who lives in London permanently, packs his lunches for him. When he’s seven another kid in his class makes fun of his lunch for being different, makes fun of another kid for the same thing. Eggsy punches him in the face and sends him crying for the teacher.

He doesn’t work out that it’s not quite normal for his mother to pat him on the back proudly when she comes to pick him up, or that his Uncle and Grandmother probably shouldn’t get him cake and help him improve his form. He knows later, of course, but at the time it just seems normal. Everything seems normal until he sits back and compares his life with his friends, and that’s when Eggsy figures out his family are complete fucking lunatics.

He doesn’t call any of them on it for years, because it actually works out pretty well. And then he’s seventeen and three months and his Grandmother kills a man with her bare hands in front of him. She doesn’t need to compose herself after the deed is done, because she’s not flustered or out of breath. She looks the same as she always does, calm and competent.

“So sorry you had to see that, Sasha dear.” She tell him, and Eggsy can help but shake his head.

“I always knew you was off, Baba.” He tells her, “But I ain’t thought of this.” She despairs at his low class accent, which is probably why he keeps it up. He loves her dearly, of course, but all children need to rebel against something, and the rules are pretty lax in a household where you’re taught how to break someone's arm with the least amount of effort before your voice breaks.

Which, thinking on it, should have been a clue that his family are more than crazy, they’re dangerous too.

Not that it bothers him, of course. They’re still his family, after all, and the fact that his Grandmother just killed a man doesn’t mean he’s gonna stop calling her Old Woman, or that she’s not going to make him a milkshake later and watch My Fair Lady with him.

“I hope you don’t think ill of me.” She says in the moderate way she had that Eggsy knows means she cares very much about what she’s saying, but is too British to let it show.

“Nah.” He tells her, grinning at her.

“Though I wouldn' mind if you taught me that.” He adds, and she smiles at him and claps her hands together.

“Of course, darling. Oh, I’ll have to call everyone, of course, now that you know. They’ve been wanting to teach you for years, but your mother said it was your decision to make once you found out in the natural course of things.”

“Is that why Aunt Maria’s always saying things which are just plain off when she comes around?” His grandmother tilts her head in a way that mean yes, exactly, and Eggys chuckles.

“She was rather hoping you’d call her out on it so she could be the one to explain. She always been quite impressed by your gymnastic talents, you know. Still talks about how, back in the good days, you would have been her top recruit."

#

It’s been a while since there was a family reunion, and they’re all arguing about who gets to teach what, and trying to remember what they’ve already taught him on the sly, working lessons into games and activities. Eggsy didn’t actually realise how much he already know about self defence and, well, how to attack someone. It’s eye opening and, next time some one attempts to assassinate his Grandmother Eggy’s quite prepared to prove himself to his family. He does so admirably; they’re all gushing their praises and he gets so many congratulatory back slaps that he thinks he might bruise.

Still, it’s a bit off when Uncle Mishka pulls out a camera and asks him to pose next to the bodies, please.

He gets a call from his Grandfather, who’s so pleased for him.

“When I saw the pictures Mishka sent me,” He starts out, “I smiled for the whole day. They are on my mantle, next to your fathers.” Eggsy feels like he should be disturbed that there are two generations of such photos on his Grandfathers mantle, but it well used to the fact that everyone he’s related to in completely deranged.

Except for his mums dad, who’s really quite normal. They go to the footy together, and Grandpa Robert buys him his first beer. He’s not legal yet, but his his Grandpa just winks and generally acts like sneaking a beer to his grandson is an illegal act worth applause. Eggsy doesn’t disabuse him of the notion, because he loves his Grandpa and it is actually kind of cool to be drinking, even if it tastes like shite. Besides, if his Grandpa knew that the illegal acts he had to compete against was his Dedushka showing him how to break fingers, well…

Best not, eh?

His Grandmother teaches him how to shoot, and she’s lords it above his aunts and uncles, but Uncle Mishka ends up being the one to teach him how to break somebodys neck. He doesn’t gloat about it, but he does pick up the habit of making Eggsy his lunch again for about a month, which he hasn’t done since Eggsy learnt how to properly cook for himself.

Eggsy and his Baba start a new Sunday routine. Gun range, milk shakes and then a movie. If Uncle Mishka is already there on Sunday mornings, well, Eggsy literally doesn’t ever want to know anything at all. Ever.

His Dedushka seems very interested, however, and Eggsy really, _really_ doesn’t want to think about that either. Especially since it’s not a negative interest and, Jesus, can Vitya stop bringing it up please?

When he’s nineteen, Eggsy joins the Marines. This decision is met with universal disapproval, which he manages to ignore for almost all of his training. He figures with his skill set, he should probably put it to good use and serve his country. They all understand, reluctantly, though he hears just about every iteration of ‘ _the Marines, really Eggsy, couldn’t you have chosen-_ ’ he’s also heard almost every agency on Earth mentioned once.

And then, when he’s twenty, his mum gets pregnant again.

She calls him in tears, because it was an accident, it was just a one night stand and now she’s pregnant and she doesn’t know what to do. He’s close to the end of his training, so close he can almost taste it. Top of his class too, but once he finishes, they’re not going to discharge him so he can go take care of his mother and baby sibling; they’re going to put him to work, and the likelihood he’ll be there for the birth is almost nil.

So he drops out, and tries not to let anyone know how much it hurts, though Maria lays a hand on his shoulder, briefly. And that’s the end of that. Eggsy resigns himself to a life of mediocrity, and maybe the odd contract job with his Baba or aunts and uncles, and stirring the shit out of the local gangs, until he does something monumentally stupid on the fourth anniversary of him dropping out of the Marines.

The prospect of eighteen months is jail is not appealing. He has so many people he could call, but he can’t stand to think of the look of disappointment on their faces, or that they’ll have to call in a favour for him. He thinks about it, phone in hand as he decides who to call. He thinks of them all, and discards each one.

In the end, he looks at the pendant he’s worn for most of his life, and calls the number because if he’s calling in a favour, it might as well be one of his own.


	7. Chapter 7

Eggsy takes one look at Harry Hart and falls arse over teakettle in love.

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. From everything he’s been told about his dad, and his dedushka, they both did the same thing. He’d thought maybe he’d be different, would take after his mum or Baba, who’d both been more cautious with their hearts.

And yet all it takes is a raised eyebrow behind those glasses and Eggsy would’ve followed him to the end of the Earth.

He doesn’t tell anyone what he’s doing, only that he’s got a job offer and wants to keep it on the downlow until he’s sure he gets it. They all smile and indulge him, like he knew they would. Dangerous, violent and insane, the whole lot of them, but he’s the baby of the family by a wide margin, and they’ve never made him want for anything important. He was told no regularly as a child, of course, he’d be a right shit otherwise (well, more of one, at any rate), but for the things that mattered, none of them were able to deny him.

Of course, Harry Hart didn’t seem to know anything about that, only what could be easily looked up. How he stopped at gymnastics (Nastya and Maria took over, both deciding that Graham wasn’t good enough to teach their little Kotik), his lack of job (lack of above board jobs, anyway - if Harry Hart knew the amount people paid him to off someone, well the conversation would be very different), his quitting out of the Marines during the last stretch (and that one hurt the most, because he still regrets it, hurt the most because it was true).

So Eggsy played up to what Harry saw, the clothes, the accent, the apparent lack of ambition; he’s known plenty of posh men who like a bit of rough, after all, and if that’s what Harry’s looking for, well, Eggsy can be as rough as Harry needs him to be.

And then he gets offered a job.

He doesn’t know how Harry got his number, or why he decided to offer him a job over the phone two hours later rather than straight away, but he’s not going to look this gift horse in the mouth.

So he follows Harry through the tailor shop, delights in Harrys befuddlement at his knowledge of classical films and plays rather than the modern adaptations (which his Baba rather dislikes, so he’d never seen), let Harry lead him into a top secret headquarters. He spent the ride from the tailors to their proper base wondering if he could convince Harry to let Eggsy get on his knees for him.

What he doesn’t expect, apart from the super secret spy organisation which he’d miraculously never heard of despite his father having died in their service and his family being who they were, was for Eggsy to take one look at Merlin and fall in love again.

Twice in one day.

Fucking ridiculous.

His Baba would be ashamed.

Dedushka, however, would probably throw him another party, like the one he’d thrown when he’d (somehow) found out Eggsy had lost his v card.

He looks between the two for a moment before he follows Merlins instructions and heads into the room. He completely blames every member of his family for this; he doesn’t know how it’s their fault yet, but he’s quite sure he can find a way to trace it back to them nevertheless. Merlins opening lines don’t help at all.

If social services knew that his family life had conditioned him to find threats sexy, they’d probably take Daisy away. Fortunately for everyone, they don’t know, and Eggsy’s good enough to keep his cool, though he doesn’t know how long that’s going to last if he has to interact with both Harry and Merlin on a regular basis.

Are there any regs about fraternizing with trainers or sponsors? He’ll have to find out.

Soon.

#

The first test is so laughably obvious that the sight of his peers shouting at each other not to panic almost makes him laugh. Uncle Petya had actually thrown him into a pool when he was eight, and shouted at him in Russian until he could hold his breath for an acceptable amount of time, which had only increased upon joining the Marines. He contemplates going for the toilets and showers, like the others, but instead tries the door. Lord knows he’s over thought enough training exercises only to realise that the simplest option is usually the correct one.

Unfortunately, the door is sealed completely, so he gets ready to swim to the two way mirror. He catches sight of Amelia panicking, however, and knows he’s got to do something about that. She’s still by her bunk, and she clearly can’t hold her breath as long as he can. She’ll run out shortly, and then they’ll be down a prospect in the first test, never a good look. So he grabs her arm as he swims by, drags her struggling form along by force of will more than muscle power, because she strong and fighting him.

He deposits her down at the loos first chance he gets, and gestures to the the others so she gets the picture to make her own. He turns to the mirror just as Roxy pulls her over to where she’s sitting in front of her own apparatus, and shares her air. Eggsy takes out his slowly mounting sexual frustration on the mirror, smashes what is probably supposed to be extra strong glass in three good hits. It helps, a bit, but then it’s Merlin looking down at them, with the fucking clipboard, and he wants anything Merlin will give him.

Charlie makes a crack about Eggsy and two way mirrors, but he lets it roll off his back. The more they underestimate him because of his clothes and the way he talks, the easier it’ll be to blindside them and snag the top spot.

Nastya, who’s a small woman that looks particularly innocent and harmless, had always reinforced to him that being underestimated can be one of the greatest weapons.

Charlie insinuates he’s a rent boy, the next day, and Eggsy just flutters his eyelashes and pouts, spreading his legs a bit where he’s sprawled over his bunk.

“Too exxy for you, mate.” He says, and Charlie turns red and apparently doesn’t know what to say. Amelia and Roxy crack up laughing, and Eggsy plays it up a bit, as he’s been prone to do since childhood, and throws in a moan just as Merlin opens the door.

Eggsy wants to fucking die.

What the actual fuck, what did he do to deserve this? Should he have spared that drug dealers life last month? But his competitor had payed a shit load to have it done. Maybe he should have told his family where he was going, but it was too late for that now.

Merlin simply raises an eyebrow at him, and Eggsy straightens up and falls in line with the rest of the potentials.

-

Eggsy’s a bit disappointed with the tests, actually.

Sure, he was brought up by a bunch of literal human murder machines, and his mum, who could cut him down to size easily enough without being able to kill a man, but shouldn’t the tests, you know, _test him?_

Apparently not, he thinks as he easily makes the shot, relieving Roxy of balloon duty. Charlie’s nattering on about something again, and it’s actually getting annoying. He’ll have to ask Merlin about regs regarding punching another potential in the face.

He still hasn’t found a way to ask him about fraternization that won’t end with Eggsy on his knees for the older man before he finishes his question. Which wouldn’t be so bad if he knew for sure Merlin would be into it, but he doesn’t know and it’s driving him nuts.

If it was anyone else, other than Harry of course, he’d just take his chance. But he actually cares about Merlin, falls further and further the more he gets to know the brusque Scot, same way he gets stupider and stupider about Harry when his sponsor takes the time to talk with him, to educate him.

(About being a gentleman, normally. God, if his Baba could see him now, letting Harry strip him of his working class accent he’d worked so hard to keep. She’d probably shake Harrys hand, and then break it if she had any inkling that Eggsy wanted the man to strip him in a very literal sense.)

#

There are a few times when he thinks that Harrys gaze lingers a tad too long in a way that’s inappropriate for a mentor/student relationship, but whenever he tries to check, Harry’s the being the perfect gentleman again.

Once or twice it’s Merlin, Eggsy’s sure, that’s looking at him with such heat he can feel it. But Merlin’s never looking at him, and Eggsy feels like shit about it, because while he’s fairly sure Harry at least appreciates him aesthetically, he can’t get a read on Merlin. And he doesn’t want just one of them, he wants both of them and, as already discussed, Eggsy’s not used to being denied things he needs like burning.

Though he’s sure if he let Uncle Vitya know of his conundrum, the man would find a way to get Eggsy what he wanted. Probably not in a manner that would satisfy Eggsy, however, so he dismisses the thought.

If the tests were challenging, he’d be able to get his mind off it. The closest it comes is when they’re given an obstacle course so beautiful Eggsy wants to take a photo and show it to his aunts.

“Feeling a bit overwhelmed, Eggy?” Charlie taunts as the toff gets ready to do his run, going first. He’s seen the look on Eggsys face, as had probably everyone, and interpreted it in the way which best fit his world view. A rather stupid way to analyse data, if you asked Eggsy, but it’ll make seeing Charlies face when he fucking aces the course all the sweeter.

Charlie actually doesn’t do too badly. Not wonderfully, stumbling over a few unexpectedly moving obstacle, unable to twist his body the right way to easily bound over other parts of the course in a way Eggsy can’t wait to do.

Digby goes next, clearly anticipating the moving section Charlie had tripped on near the start of the course, and finds himself off balance when it doesn’t come, meaning that when the next part of the course shifts, he only barely manages to avoid falling onto his arse. Piers, Eggsy is sure, is going to fail out because of this test. He barely makes it through, falls over thrice and might have sprained his ankle on top of it all.

Roxy does a fair job, slightly better than Charlie because she was wary of moving pieces, but still not able to move her body in the right way to take advantage of the beautiful setup. Rufus is next, but Eggsy isn’t paying much attention to him or the next candidate, too busy warming up. He doesn’t have to, of course, could run the course cold just as easily, but he doesn’t just want to do the course, he wants to be the best.

Wants to impress Merlin. And Harry, who Eggsy had seen speaking to Merlin before they’d started. He knew Eggsy was good at gymnastics, after all; hopefully he’d told Merlin to up the ante so he could really show off.

If there was any sort of justice or karma to the universe, Eggsys cocky attitude would have seen him be over confident and fail, reinforcing the morality tale of modesty. There rarely was such cosmic comeuppance, however, and Eggsy wasn’t over confident. He knew exactly how good he was, and he had two super spies to seduce.

He fucking aces the course.

Fastest time, no stumbles.

He throws his body around like he was made to, because he knows himself intimately, is confident enough that even if the course shifts under him he’ll be able to compensate. And he does. He’s all of three meters into the course when he feels the difficulty level ratchet up, and he’s pretty sure the grin on his face is the less than comforting one he stole off Uncle Vitya, who’d crossed the border from cruel into downright sadistic a few decades ago.

Eggsy’s all feral enjoyment of the course, and then he finishes and Charlie flinches away from the look on his face, well.

Bonus.

Harry doesn’t flinch, though, and neither does Merlin. The only thing better is the look of pride on Harrys face when he congratulates him, and the small nod of acknowledgement Merlin gives him.

Eggsy almost does something stupid, almost says something stupid, when Roxy congratulates him, breaking the three way staring contest he seems to be having with Merlin and Harry.

“Bloody amazing!” She enthuses, and Eggsy laughs.

“Thanks. Can I run it again later?” He asks, and Merlin agrees, while Roxy just beams at him. She’s a great mate.

#

Who’s also afraid of fucking heights, as it turns out.

Charlie’s a prick about it, of course. Absolutely no surprise there, but together they do it. And then they’re down a parachute, which, finally.

An actual test. One that has no parallels to anything his family’s put him through. None of them had thought to throw him out of a plane possibly without a parachute, dependent on other people. None of them trust other people enough, except each other - but even that can sometimes be iffy.

And then it turns out that he’s the one without the parachute and, fuck, if they hadn’t managed to pull the chute at the last second, he’d be fucking dead. The adrenaline pumping through his body may make him a bit stupid, saying things he shouldn’t be saying.

It’s just, he’s really fucking into Merlin, and to know that he was the one who was deemed expendable enough to get the dud, by Merlin, it fucking hurt. This is why Uncle Vitya doesn’t date, doesn’t love, because it’s painful and it’s ruining.

Doesn’t stop his body from reacting when Merlins voice drops and he tells Eggsy to never speak to him like that again.

“Whisper in my ear,” He says and Eggsy wants to do just that. Fuck, all the filthy things he wants to say to Merlin. And, really, Eggsy can think of so many complaints, starting with ‘can we get harder tests,’ to ‘I don’t know whether you want to fuck me over a desk, and that’s a problem.’ Then Merlin pulls his parachute cord and it billows out, catches in the wind, and he’s thrown on his back. He’s just about giddy with relief; he’s not expendable to Merlin. Fuck, it was a psych out test, he’s a fucking idiot.

Doesn’t stop him from spreading his legs a little wider, even in the ugly jumpsuit he’s wearing, but he doesn’t chance a look up to see if Merlin looks before he walks away. He wants to know, but he’s just kind of giddy that he fell for a test, that he was only in danger from his own stupidity because Merlin gave him a chute.

He eventually detaches himself and rolls off the ground, thinks about what Merlin said as he folds the chute.

Maybe it wasn’t that Merlin wasn’t attracted to him, but he wasn’t interested in ‘a bit of rough’ the way Harry was. Wanted someone who he felt was he equal, someone who could match him. Eggsy could match him, if given the chance, but he’d have to let go of the persona he’d pulled on when he met Harry. It’s not too different from how he normally is, just rougher around the edges, more defensive. A large enough change to be noticeable, but not large enough that Harry would feel like he’d been played.

Hopefully.

Fuck, he might have accidentally fucked himself over because he’d tried to play the game before the board had been fully set.

He was a huge fucking idiot and if it all blew up in his face it was his own fault.

Fucking hell.

#

They’re given a honeypot mission, and a competition to boot. He wonders how closely they’re going to be monitored, if he can have a little fun with Merlin who’s always in their ear, test the waters. They arrive separately, and Charlie finds their target first, but Roxy and Eggsy are soon to follow. Eggsy knows what he’s going to do, had been on the pull enough he knows how to work it, work himself, he’s just still thinking of how to work Merlin into the equation (and Harry, if the man was listening in, wouldn’t that be delightful) when he wanders up and takes another drink of champagne.

It’s off, and he abandons his plan in order raise his concerns. They both brush him off, still working the con, but Eggsy won’t be swayed. He knows this, knows why the champers is off and why his body is starting to feel off, and he breaks the waiters nose before he goes down. He’s not very coherent by the time it pulls him under, but he revels in the feeling of the mans nose breaking under his fist and knows that if his body turns up, the man will die a slow, painful death he never anticipated.

Waking up tied to train tracks is so ridiculously cliche that he almost laughs in the mans face.

Then the man asks him about Kingsmen, and he does.

“Is it worth dying for?” He yowls as the train speeds closer, and Eggsy spits at him the best he can tied to the ground.

“Fuck yeah, and fuck you.” Eggsy snarls, braced for impact, but there is none. Just the sound and noise of a train rushing overhead, he looks up and lets out a laugh, because they fucking got him again. Two tests in a fucking row; they were getting better. Admittedly, if he wasn’t still fucked up from getting roofied he’d have probably figured it out but, as it was, he’d thought he was about to get hit by a train.

“You fucking bastards!” Eggsy shouts just as the train finishes overhead, laughing the whole time. The platform he’s tied to is raised, and Harry’s standing there, looking proud and smug.

“Language, Eggsy.” He chides, and Eggsy smiles.

“English, bruv.” Harry quirks an eyebrow.

“Sometimes I very much doubt that.” Eggsy’s about half a second from replying in Russian, just to see the expression on Harrys face when, once again, Eggsy blindsides him with culture, when he notices the way Harrys eyes are lingering on his bound wrists. Which, fuck yeah.

He’s all for Harry ravishing him like this, tied down and dominated by Harry. Wants it so much, he’s twenty seconds of fantasising away from his dick visibly tenting his pants, loose as they were. Harry leans down, and Eggsy waits with baited breath, but Harry just unties him. Disappointing, but not wholly unexpected. Harry Hart is a true gentleman, after all, and he’d never do something like jumping Eggsy when he’s bound and apparently helpless; at least, not without a discussion first.

Eggsy likes that about him, he really does, but at the same time if he doesn’t have either Merlin or Harry or, preferably, both in his bed soon, he’s going to go postal.

-

Charlie pikes out, of course he does. It’s a shame, because he wasn’t actually too bad at the whole spy thing, even if his personality was gonna get him punched in the face one day. 

So it’s just him and Roxy, and they fistbump before they go off to spend the day with their sponsors.

Eggsy knows what he wants to spend the day doing, or who, rather. They head to Harrys house, which is actually quite nice, and Harry strips down to his shirt sleeves, which is even better. He’s having a suit made for Eggsy, and he hopes he looks as good in it as Harry does.

Harry offers to train him in the gentlemanly arts some more, and like hell is Eggsy going to refuse to learn. It’ll give him more to talk to Harry about, and it’ll actually probably come in handy at some point.

So he lets Harry teach him how to make a martini, and lets him put on classical music and, for once, doesn’t blink when Eggsy comments that prefers Vivaldi over Debussy, just smiles and switches records. And of course he has vinyls, because that’s the type of man Harry Hart is. 

It makes him ridiculously fond.


	8. Chapter 8

In addition to how to make a martini, Harry shows him to to prepare tea properly, and how to cook dinner. Eggsy had protested that he knows how to cook, thank you very much, to which Harry had challenged, ’show me’. And Eggsy wouldn’t have been Eggsy if he’d been able to refuse. They’d gone shopping together, a slice of domesticity that Eggsy squirrels away into his heart, and Harry’d let Eggsy take the reigns. Except, Eggsy’s pretty sure they’ve made too much food, is contemplating saying so to Harry when the doorbell rings.

Eggsy’s a little pissed off with whoever’s interrupting his day with Harry.

He’s distinctly less upset when he hears Merlins voice, when Harry walks back into the kitchen, Merlin a few steps behind. Eggsy smiles at him, smiles at them, and ignores the way his heart stutters in his chest because this is what he wants. Both of them, together, in one house, sharing dinner and chatting, before retiring to bed, together. Not that any of that’s going to happen, and he doesn’t even know if Merlin’s here to eat the extra food - for all Eggsy knows, Harry’s just really into bulk cooking and leftovers.

“Alright, Merlin?” Eggsy says, turning back to where he’s stirring the stroganoff, wondering if seeing him in an apron, cooking, is doing anything for Merlin. Eggsy knows cooking for Harry and now, hopefully, Merlin did something for him. Well, it didn’t do anything sexual for him; it just gave him a flutter in his stomach, made him want to grin like a loon.

“Aye, alright, Eggsy?” He’d replied, and Eggsy nodded, chancing a look up from the stove to see two sets of eyes on him.

“It’s almost done, if you wanna sit down.” He offers, because while having them both watch him so intently was something he dreamed of, it was a little different in real life, when he couldn’t tell what they were thinking. It sent a pleasurable shiver up his spine, though.

“Nonsense, you’ve cooked - you must let us serve.” Eggsy laughed, shaking his head.

“Nah, I’ll dish up. You can bring the tea, though, and do the washing.” He tells them, and Merlin grabs the teapot while Harry grabs the cups and they disappear through to the dining room just as Eggsy flips the switch on the stove and grabs the plates. He drains the pasta, then presents it as nicely as is possible. He takes the three plates out into the dining room, and is a bit surprised to see Harry and Merlin sitting across from each other, the head of the table left free for Eggsy.

“This is quite good, Eggsy.” Harry compliments, after a few bites, and Merlin agrees. Eggsy doesn’t blush at all, not even a little bit.

“Thanks, my…” He trails off because he’d forgotten, hadn’t he? He’d been so caught up with the tests and watching and wanting Harry and Merlin he fucking forgot to call his grandmother like he promised he would. He’s about three weeks overdue with his phone call; he doesn’t even want to imagine what they’re doing right now.

“Actually, would it be okay if I called me family real quick? It’s just, I promised I’d call ‘em a fortnight after I started my ‘apprenticeship’, and…” He trails off, and Harry nods and directs him to his home phone.

“Thanks, sorry.” He says, and Harry smiles at him before returning to the dining room.

He dials his grandmother first, because he don’t fancy being shot next time he goes round.

“Hello?” She answers, and Eggsy takes a breath.

“Baba.” There’s silence on the other end of the line, a frosty, icy silence, before she says, composed as always,

“Gary, to what do I owe the honour of this phone call?” He sighs, leaning against the wall, looking back into the dining room where Harry and Merlin were eating and steeling himself.

“It’s Eggsy, Baba,” He starts with, trying to lighten the mood, but he can tell before he’s even finished that it’s not going to work, so he continues, “Sorry I didn’t call, I got caught up. I only remembered now and called straight away.”

“Well, how nice of you to call. I’ll call off the cavalry, shall I?” Her voice is perfectly level still, but it’s ice and steel underneath, and he apologises again.

“How bad is it?” He asks, once he’s sure she’s forgiven him, and she laughs.

“Oh, darling.” There’s amusement and pity in her voice, and Eggsy winces.

#

“Right, well, I’ll just be going now, shall I?” He says, just as he hears uncle Mishkas booming voice in the background.

“It’s Gary, dear.” She tells him, and Eggsy panics at hearing what’s practically a roar in the background. Obviously not just Mishka who’d arrived.

“Gotta go, pass on my love, bye.” He hangs up to the sound of his grandmothers laughter and loud, concerned, Russian swearing.  


-

As it turns out, both Harry and Merlin are mad Arsenal fans. Eggsy decides not to hold it against them, as they’ve spent the last three hours holding him. He thinks it over in his mind, before deciding that sounds way too platonic. Eggsy wouldn’t care if they loved fucking Chelsea, with how well they fucked him. Well, he might care just a bit, but they were for Arsenal so it was a moot point.

“What are you thinking about?” Harry asks, and Eggsy smirks from where he’s sprawled across both of their laps, loose limbed, naked and aching.

“Thank god you’re not Chelsea supporters. Although, Arsenal...” Both Harry and Merlin make offended faces, offended noises, and Eggsy can’t help but laugh. It feels slightly surreal, that he’s lounging in bed with them, their hands gently running over his skin, caressing and soothing him, as if he needs to be soothed. Feels almost like a dream, but his throat’s sore and his voice is hoarse, and his got an ache in his arse and lower back from being fucked rough and well, and his muscles are still trembling. Small, fine tremors and, okay, maybe he does appreciate the soothing hands a bit.

And, if it were a dream, he imagines that the seducing would have gone a bit smoother.

Eggsy had been contemplating it, over dinner; trying to figure out what to say or do that could entice two handsome, older men to fuck him right proper, but before he could try it, at the end of dinner, Harry went,

“We’d actually like to talk to you about something, Eggsy.” Eggsy, most of his brain still on the problem at hand, had nodded for Harry to continue. Harry paused, as if he hadn’t quite thought out what to say, before stumbling over his words in his haste to get them out.

“Right. Well, you see over the past few weeks of your training, both Merlin and I have noticed that, well. You see, I, that is to say, we,” He cleared his throat softly, and had Eggsy full attention. There was a moment of panic, because what if they’d noticed him pining over ‘em, and they were trying to let him down easy? That would have been mortifying. Fortunately, Merlin’s there to pick up the slack and says, bluntly,

“We want you, ye ken?”

“Ken?” He’d asked, and Merlin rolled his eyes while Harry found his composure and answered.

“Know. You know that we want you.” Eggsy hadn’t known, not for sure, and Merlin’d still been an enigma, but the heat in their eyes as they watched him and waited for his response had left no room for doubt. A, completely deserved, smirk had settled across his mouth then, and he strived for his Babas calm, unruffled, haughty tone of voice, but he’d lost the posh accent after the first few words.

“How fortunate, 'cause I’m fair gagging for the pair o’ you; I’d let you both fuck me over this table right now, actually. Too bad we’re still eating dinner, innit?”

“I’m done, ye cheeky bastard.” Merlin had announced, placing his fork down on his mostly cleared plate. Eggsy’d looked at Harry, who wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin, placed his utensils down, then said,

“As delightful as it was, I find I have also finished.”

And then, well, they’re both gentlemen, ain’t they? Would’ve been rude to refuse an invitation such as his, Harry had told him as the plates were moved safely out of reach. And then they were on him, two sets of hands running down his sides, under his clothes. One of them gets his collar undone, and Merlin bit open mouthed kisses up his neck, biting down firmly just under Eggsys jaw. Harry had swallowed Eggsys moan with his mouth, kissed the life out of him as Merlin went to work sucking and biting and bruising up his throat.

They’d pulled away at the same time, those bastards, just to hear him whimper with the loss. And then they led him upstairs, to Harrys bed, and took him apart.

#

“Well, you go for bloody Millwall, so I rather don’t think you have a leg to stand on.” Harry sniffed, bringing him back to the present. Eggsy hums the first few lines of ‘ _no one likes us, we don’t care’_ before Merlin places a large hand over his mouth, which, the way Eggsy freezes is rather telling. Merlin, carefully, presses his hand down harder, just in case it was a negative reaction. The way Eggsy melts into the hold, however, makes the Scot chuckle.

“Oh, we’re goin’ have fun with ye.” He rumbles, and Eggsy feels his spent cock valiantly try to harden again, even though the amount of times he’s come in the past few hours means it’s not likely. He also wants to say something like ‘ _haven’t you already had fun with me_ ’ but Merlin’s still covering his mouth, and Harrys hands have moved away from aimless petting to something more direct.

He’s not sure if he can get it up again so soon, but they’re about to find out.

The answer is no, as it turns out; even youth has its limits. It doesn’t seem to bother them any, and Harry spends a few minutes fingering his loose hole, anyway, just to see him writhe with over stimulation.

“If we get up early enough,” Harry says once they’ve finally stopped teasing him, and they’re getting settled in for the night,

“Round two?” He asks, and Eggsy’s pretty sure it’d actually be round four, for him at least, and that if they fuck him the way they’d done already - spit roasted him, for a while, before Harry’d come in his arse and Merlin’d replaced him - the he wasn’t gonna be much use to anyone, tomorrow, let alone take another test.

“Sure.” He says instead, and happily lets himself be cocooned between their larger bodies. They’ll have to talk tomorrow; at least, Eggsy wants to talk. He’ll be fine with a no strings attached kind of deal, he can totally do that with the two men he’s absolutely mental for, but he just needs to know. And if they want more, if they actually want a relationship with him, he’ll be over the fucking moon.

-

The next test is a fucking farce. Again.

Like he don’t know the difference in weight between live rounds and blanks.

There’s a little voice that sounds like his aunt Nastya and his uncle Vitya in the back of his head, which is tutting and badmouthing the English and their tests; _‘in the KGB,’_ the one which sounds like his aunt starts, and he barely refrains from laughing in Arthurs face when he shoots the dog without hesitation. He hears Roxy do the same, half a second later.

If he gets the job, he’s got some serious words for Merlin about the efficiency and difficulty of these tests.

Fuck, even if he don’t get the job, he’s gonna say something.

Shoot the fucking dog, his fucking arse.

What the actual fuck.

-

He and Roxy return to the bunks, and she’s clutching at her poodle something fierce. JB’s lounging in Eggsys lap, and they both smile at her when she walk in.

“Easy, eh Rox?” He grins, and she tries to as well, except there’s something in her eyes that don’t look okay.

“...You knew they was blanks, though, right?” He asks, because how could she not ‘ave? She shakes her head, and Eggsy almost falls of his bunk in shock.

“You shot your _fucking dog_ thinking it was _live **fucking** rounds?”_ He’s stunned, and maybe a bit loud. She looks ready to punch him in the face, but holds back when he whistles, impressed.

“Fuck, Rox, knew you was hardcore.” And she smiles, then a real smile, and rolls her eyes at him.

“Stay the fuck away from JB, though, yeah?” He jokes and she laughs, throwing her pillow at him.

“Fuck off, Eggsy.”

-

Eggsy gets called into Merlins office, a few hours after the test. He’s a bit wary that there’s gonna be another subpar test waiting for him.

Instead, he’s greeted with a fierce kiss, and a second body pressed up against his back once the door closes.

“Congratulations, lad.” Merlin says, followed by a bruising kiss.

“Very well done.” Harry praised, and he’s the one biting bruising kisses into Eggsys neck this time. Eggsy’s just fucking lucky Arthur hadn’t commented on the wrecked state of his throat, though Roxy’d eyed him curiously.

All in all, it’s a pretty great fucking way to celebrate.


	9. Chapter 9

“As you’ve both passed the test,” Merlin tells them as they kit up, “you’ll be assisting on live missions with your sponsors. Usually, the two final potentials and their mentors will do joint missions until such time as one candidate has been found unsuitable. Today’s just a milk run, though, so Percival and Ms. Morton won’t be travelling to Kentucky.” He finishes, only to be on the receiving end of two puzzled looks.

He had, after all, just outfitted both Eggsy and Roxy. He sends them a quick grin, and a wink, before they’re being ushered out of the office and to a plane.

“Merlin rather thought you’d prefer to be here for the first mission, milk run or not.” Harry says by way of greeting, and Roxy can’t help her grin.

The set up is this: Harry, as the most senior agent - as the only actual agent - will take point on the ground. Eggsy will be running backup and communications from about two streets away from the the church, with Roxy and Merlin helping coordinate the mission. And it really does seem like a milk run, especially since there doesn’t appear to be any testing actually happening.

Unless you count the patience of everyone sane who’s being forced to listen to the sermon; that, Eggsy knows, is being severely tested.

And then it all goes to shit. Eggsy can’t even pinpoint where it went wrong but, suddenly, they’ve all just seen Harry shoot that woman.

“Holy fuck.” Roxy breathes next to him, just as stunned. And, on the feed…

It’s brutal. Harry outclasses everyone there; it’s a blood bath.

Eggsy’s shocked out of his stupor, though, when one of them draws a gun and, fuck, how’d he forgotten? This is America - in amongst all of that aggression, there’s got to be at least a few guns. Harry may be wearing a bulletproof suit, but if a stray bullet caught his head, his neck…

He could get killed.

“Roxy, take over the station.” Eggsy bolts out of the chair and starts shoving the things he needs in the bags.

“This is what they’re testing, yeah?” He asks as he zips up the bag.

“Whatever this is, Valentine’s caused it. Maybe a transmission - if it is, we can stop it. Stop him.” Eggsy doesn’t give them time to think it over, he’s at the door already.

“Roxy, you know what I’ve got. You know what I’ve planned?” Luckily she does, cause he don’t have time to explain it to her or Merlin, and this way she can do it for him. It had been one of the scenarios they’d trained for, actually, but he can tell from the look in her eyes she’d never thought she’d have to see him perform the drop. Her lips are a thin, unhappy line.

“To get the device in range…” She trails off at his grim nod. Eggsy’d ignored Merlin protesting in the background, but he doesn’t have time to apologise. Harry doesn’t have time for him to apologize.

“Glasses.” Merlin says, voice defeated, and Eggsy takes the spare pair of glasses he hadn’t yet worn.

He has enough breath as he sprints towards the church to try and tell Merlin that everything’ll be fine; he gets a soft ‘aye, lad’ in response. It doesn’t take him long to arrive. He sees the steeple first, of course, and as he rounds the corner he sees people; a group of them, waiting for the aftermath.

“Valentine, his assistant Gazelle and private security.” Merlins identifies, and Eggsy locks eyes on them just as he comes into hearing range of the church. When he'd heard shots as he raced towards them, he'd worried for Harry. Now, though, the shots only send his pulse racing higher. He’s four steps closer to the group standing out front of the church when he starts to let go of the bag.

“Almost there, Eggsy.” Merlin urges in his ear, and yes, Eggsy is almost there. He’s almost close enough and so he drops the bag and pulls his gun out. He doesn’t realise how much red is missing from his world before the closest man goes down with half his head gone in a satisfying explosion of blood and gore, red splatters landing on the covered face of the man next to him. Eggsy shoots through Valentines shoulder, Gazelle attempting to twist him down to avoid fire - to avoid any blood - but it’s too late. Eggsy turns his attention to the blood splattered guard closest to him as Valentine starts to vomit.

#

It’s easy to step behind the larger mans body, easier still to take the machine gun from his hands and hold the trigger until his neck is mostly gone, arteries and veins showering Eggsy with warm blood. He can feel it running down his face, soaking into his hair, and smiles as he catches the eyes of one of the guards on the other end of the car park.

There’s momentary silence in the carpark, as the guards struggle to reload - he can hear the shouts and aggression from inside the church; he can’t wait to get inside. He raises his gun seconds before any of the guards can fumble their weapons into place. He’s caught them off guard, and they pay for it. He has to avoid the kevlar vests, but it’s easy enough to shoot them through the eye. He makes a game of it; his grandmother would be proud.

There are three left, now; three which Eggsy hadn’t shot down in a haze of red mist. It’s rather disappointing, and he raises his gun to rectify that.

Eggsy empties his clip into the last guard, who’s standing protectively in front of Valentine and Gazelle. It’s not as good as seeing a machine gun shred skin and muscle and bone, but it’s good enough. His body crumples, and Valentine goes completely limp. Eggsy dismisses him, and Gazelle stands up. There’s no time to reload his clip, so he throws his gun away and meets her head on.

The voice in his ear has gone quiet, it doesn’t matter. Nothing is more important than the woman bounding towards him and how soon he can see her dead by his hands.

He dances around her deadly prosthetics for 47 seconds, mostly avoiding cuts, the few he does receive spurring him on. Then, he rolls over one of the corpses, a now faceless guard, and comes up with a machine gun. Gazelle goes down in a spray of bullets and blood, like everyone else. Eggsy’s covered in it - a red tinge to everything that he’d never known to miss. There’s the heady scent of blood in the air as he looks towards the church, where there are still a few shouts. The last strains of a violent, beautiful melody.

There’s a voice, again, muttering every iteration of ‘please, God, no,’, but he cannot see it, does not know where it is, cannot wrap his hands around it and squeeze until there’s nothing but death writ large across their features, so he looks at the church and starts towards it.

The white doors swing outwards, and Eggsy’s never seen anything so perfect as the picture it creates. The inside of the doors is stained with blood, gore dripping from it in a wanton display of violence that Eggsy holds a visceral appreciation for. Thin tendrils of dark smoke are seeping out through the top of the doorway, and Eggsy can hear the sharp cracks that indicate what’s sure to be a raging fire, even if he can’t feel the heat yet. He can see bodies, corpses, strewn about inside the church - a twitch or two here or there that could be the last death throes.

Because they’re not still alive, not when Harry looks like that.

His suit’s not just navy blue anymore; it’s black with blood from his hems to his knees, the faintest red sheen catching the light. There’s blood on his hands, his previously pristine white shirt, his forehead and cheeks. There’s not a single part of Harry which is unruffled by his fight, but he still takes the time to readjust his tie as he slowly walks down the church stairs. Eggsy’s never seen something more arousing.

He takes a step towards Harry, and Harry takes a step towards him. They meander closer to each other, in no particular rush. They both know where this is headed, after all, and Eggsy could not keep the feral smile from his face if he wanted to. He can smell the blood on the air, the smoke; every step closer they take, he can feel violence and brutality in his blood. He can taste it.

His own smile is in the reflection on Harrys glasses; in the jagged gash of Harrys mouth that should be a smile - but nothing so dangerous could be a smile.

Eggsy throws the first punch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same cliff hanger as in the kink meme, but not the same wait; don't ya love me?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is all I have so far. :)

And Harry catches it, the horrified look on his face matching Eggsys.

“I am so sorry, ‘Arry.” Eggsy croaks out, horrified at what he’d almost done. He doesn’t know who would’ve won out of the pair of them, but it wouldn’t’ve been an easy fight. He’d wanted to spar with Harry, before, it would’ve been fun. But now Eggsy doesn’t think that’ll ever happen, because he’ll remember this moment when he’d gone at Harry with intent - had wanted to beat Harry to death.

And he would’ve, if he could’ve. He’s shaking, minute tremors wracking his smaller frame. He didn’t give a shit about the goons he’d just killed, but, god, he’d wanted to feel Harrys blood on his hands and it was killing him.

“So am I.” Harry says, and pulls Eggsy in for a hug, wrapping his strong arms around Eggsy. He’s trying to stop his trembling, but it’s only getting worse, so Harry just hold on tight, even though Eggsy knows he’s probably falling to pieces inside, from what he’d done inside the church. Eggsy hadn’t seen more than a few seconds of it but, god, what he’d seen had been brutal.

There’s a soothing voice in both their ears, low and calm for all the violence he’d just seen, and Eggsy’s glad that at least someone’s attempting to comfort Harry. He wants to, wants to wrap his arms around Harry and hold him and tell him what’s happened doesn’t make him any less, but he can’t. It feels too good to be wrapped in Harrys arms, to cling to the front of his bloody jacket and be soothed like a child.

They stand there, still dripping blood onto the church steps, Merlin talking to them quietly, until a car rolls up. Eggsy goes to tense, because this is a hell of a scene - the church is really starting to burn, now - but both Harry and Merlin calm him.

“Roxy’ll check Valentine,” Merlin says, and Eggsy can hear Roxys soft, even foot falls once the car door slams shut.

“He’s alive; unconscious and covered in his own vomit. God, that’s disgusting.” She says, distaste clear in her voice, and Eggsy can’t help but chuckle. Harry presses a kiss into his hair and reluctantly pulls away. Eggsy smiles up at him, knowing it’s probably not the most confident smile in the world, and reaches up to wipe some of the blood off Harrys chin, off his glasses, but stops before he makes contact. His hands are covered in blood, too, from clutching at Harrys suit.

Eggsy shrugs it off, not the first time he’s had blood covered hands, not with the side jobs he’d been doing over the years, but Harry doesn’t look so steady.

“C’mon, let’s get you in the car.” They walk around the bodies, and Harry’s content to be put into the passenger seat. Eggsy can hear the faint sound of Merlin speaking, indecipherable from the distance between Eggsy and Harrys glasses, and is relieved to know that Merlin’s taking care of their Harry.

(Can Eggsy say their? They haven’t talked about it, yet, this thing they’re doing - they need to do it soon, or Eggsy’s going to get fucking attached, and then it’ll be a right mess.

Like he isn’t already painfully fucking attached.)

It’s a pain in the arse to get Valentine into the boot of the car. Eggsy moves their equipment out of the trunk and into the back seat while Roxy makes sure Valentine doesn’t bleed out, and then they both haul his dead weight to the boot.

“So gross.” Eggsy can’t help but say, mirroring Roxy’s earlier sentiments about the vomit.

“You’re covered in blood.” She points out blandly, not ruffled by the sight.

“Yeah… but it ain’t vom, is it?”

She laughs at him, and it’s a good sound. He can see Harry, through the back window, relax at the sound. Eggsy smiles back at her, as the close the boot on Valentine, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“You are ridiculous.” She’s still laughing as she says it, though, so Eggsy counts it as a win.

#

They’re driving around mostly aimlessly until Harry and Eggsy can make themselves presentable enough for the airport. They’d used the wet wipes in the glove compartment, stained them pink-red-brown with blood, littering the floor of the car with them, and they’d still get arrested on sight.

“I mean, I know I ain’t ever fully presentable, but this is a bit much.” Eggsy complains of his bloodied clothes, and at the small bits of drying, flaky blood in the crevices of his ear and at his hairline that don’t seem to move, no matter how hard he scrubs.

Harry sends him a dry look through the rear view mirror, gesturing at his entire suit which, fair, is still covered in blood. Drying blood. That’s gonna be uncomfortable as fuck to get out of, Eggsy knows.

“You’d be best off binning that.” Eggsy says, and Harry sighs, attempting to claw back some sort of equilibrium.

“I was rather hoping to keep it as a souvenir, actually.” The amount of sarcasm could be used to bring down a horse, Eggsy was pretty sure, but at least Harry had stopped diligently wiping and scrubbing at his already clean face.

“Aye, like this you’ll never get to the plane. Not with Valentine.” Merlin muses, mind clearly racing forward, looking at the problem from all sides to try and get around it.

“I can go buy you both new clothes, if we had somewhere to put you both. I can’t imagine that no one will notice if I leave you both blood soaked in a parking lot.” She’s right. Their faces and hands are clean, sure, but there’s blood smeared all over their seats from where their clothes have touched. From a distance Harrys suit looks normal, but Eggsy’s shirt is covered in gore from where he’d shot a man to pieces. Not to mention all their equipment on the back seat, not the least of which are several guns and other shady looking shit.

Only one thing to do.

“Can I borrow a phone?” Eggsy ignores the way Roxy’s eyebrow shoots towards her hairline, and accepts the mobile Harry hands over after a quick wipe down. He doesn’t bother to look at the screen when he punches the number in, makes sure his glasses aren’t able to see the screen either. He knows they’re a bit fussy about who knows their number; he can’t take his glasses off to make the call, though, that’d be suspicious.

More suspicious than the conversation Merlin’s about to overhear, anyway. The call connects and from the way Harrys eyes snap to his in the rear view mirror, and how Roxy’s head tilts slightly, he knows Merlin’s patched them all into the one line, again.

“How did you get this number.” It’s not a question, and the voice at the other end of the line is hard, dangerous. Eggsy smiles anyway.

“Ey, Ded,” Is all he gets out before his grandfather is shouting in Russian.

“Ты не пишешь, ты не звонишь. Ты повесил трубку при разговоре со своей бабушкой! И Мишкой! Неужели так себя чувствовала моя мама? Мое давление, Саша..” Eggsy can’t help but laugh at the laundry list of complaints his grandfather starts to lay at his feet; Eggsy’s sure that if he lets it go on for long enough, he’d be responsible for global warming and the end of the KGB, as well.

“Anyway,” he cuts in after a few minutes, when he feels the conversation shift from his grandfather complaining to his grandfather worrying, “I called for a reason. Me and a few friends are in Kentucky and we need to get back to England. We’re also covered in blood with an unconscious hostage.” There’s stunned disbelief all round. The Kingsmen are shocked because he’d just laid it out, no double talk or working around the more delicate aspects, his grandfather because…

“Vanya, so careless. Who are these friends who have taught you such bad habits? I should put Vitya onto them, show them how to really flee bloodied with corpses.”

“He’s not a corpse, Ded.”

“Mmm, not yet I think. Now, Vita, she’ll be so disappointed that-” Eggsy cut him off.

“You still have the house?”

“Of course. Text me when you clean up. I will come with you home to England; meet these friends.” Threaten them is unspoken, but Eggsy feels it like a weight anyway.

This is going to be a right fucking mess, he can feel it.

#

See, the thing is, Eggsy’s never really thought about Harry and Merlin meeting his family. Harry’s already met his mum and dad, sure, but the pair of them meeting his Baba and Ded, and all the aunts and uncles?

Not a single thought.

He was thinking about it now, in the oppressively silent car as they followed the directions Eggsy’s punched into the GPS. They obviously have questions, rightly so, but it’s just as clear that Eggsy doesn’t want to answer them. He’ll have to, of course, but he’ll put it off for as long as he can. The Russian probably threw them, Eggsy wonders if any of them speak it - after all they are … spies…

Harry was a spy, had been a spy for quite a number of years - was… was Harry a spy during the Cold War?

Eggsy can’t help the way he’s staring at the back of Harrys head. If Merlin were here, he’d be trying to stare at them both.

They were both probably active during the Cold War which, shit, this could get very, very bad.

“So, uh,” Eggsy starts, when they’re only ten minutes away from the safe house. Gives him a definite out for the conversation if he needs it and, lets be honest, he will, “know any Russian?” The look Harry gives him through the rear vision mirror is self-explanatory.

“Fluently.” Harry says crisply, which means he did understand Ivan when he blamed Eggsy for his blood pressure and the way his gun jammed the previous week.

Excellent.

“Aye.” Merlin echoes, and Eggsy wishes he’d left this conversation until later. Maybe never.

“I’ve specialised in Indo-Iranian languages, and French.” Roxy says, which means at least one person doesn’t know what just happened, though she looks more tense because of it. There’s silence for a little bit, then

“In your file, both sets of grandparents are listed as deceased.” Merlin says, and Eggys makes a vague agreeing noise.

“He’s not actually on my father's birth certificate. There’s a blank space.” Eggsy says, because it’s true, and because it lets him sidestep the underlying question, which is ‘what else in your file is false?’ - a question Eggsy would rather avoid while tensions are high.

He was going to approach it eventually, maybe after a good shag and more of a relationship than half a week behind them. Preferably half a dozen years.

“Any other blank spaces?” Harry asks pointedly, and Eggsy makes another vague, non committal sound. Roxy raises an eyebrow.

“What could you possibly have to hide?” She asks, but the way she says it doesn’t raise his hackles as it would if it had been most anyone else.

“Apart from a theoretically unknown Russian grandfather whose gun jammed last week and is okay with me dragging home bloody friends and bodies?” Eggsy says, knows that if he didn’t say it Harry or Merlin would, and then he’d have to extrapolate.

“Apart from that, yes.” She says, completely calm, and Eggsy smiles at her. Rock solid, she is. One of them has to be, after today, and it sure as shit ain’t gonna be him or Harry. Merlin’s probably not doing too well, either, after having seen everything but still being so far away. God, he wanted to wrap his arms around Merlin, him and Harry both, and just hold on until everything was normal again.

Instead, he and Harry are missing a third, who’s sitting in an office on the other side of the ocean, alone and most likely upset and worried, while they’re sitting in a car that smells like blood.

Overall, Eggsy would rate the day at about a 2/10. Because, hey, they’re not fucking dead and he got to kill some people but he also knows it was a shit day for Harry, and the possibility of hurting Harry took away any enjoyment the killing brought.

Maybe a 4, because he did get to blow Merlin at his desk before they left, with Harrys hands running through his hair and over his shoulders, and that was enough to put any day up to 10/10 in Eggsys opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian:
> 
> Ты не пишешь, ты не звонишь. Ты повесил трубку при разговоре со своей бабушкой! И Мишкой! Неужели так себя чувствовала моя мама? Мое давление, Саша..
> 
> You don't write, you don't call. And you hung up on your grandmother! And Mishka! Is this how my mother felt? My blood pressure, Sasha...


	11. Chapter 11

Eggsy knows it’s inappropriate; Harry’s in the shower, blood flaking off, turning the water pinkish-red, scrubbing to get rid of the blood he was covered in as Eggsy talks to Merlin. He knows Harry’s gonna need therapy or something, after they wrap everything up, but watching his lover run a wash cloth over his body is incredibly erotic, even with the dried blood. Maybe partly because of the dried blood - Eggsy ain’t gonna pretend he’s normal, that the blood is a turn off.

And Harry did leave the shower curtain on.

So, regardless of how inappropriate, he turns to the large bathroom mirror, and winks at himself, at Merlin.

“Thought ye were taking turns.” The man reminds him, because he and Harry had agreed to shower separately, to make sure they didn’t get distracted and could continue with their mission forthwith. Eggsy shrugs, blows a kiss in the mirror, before he takes the glasses off and places them on the sink counter, facing towards the shower. Then he strips off his briefs and climbs into the shower with Harry.

-

And it’s not that he ignores the phone, on purpose, it’s just that it’s tucked away in Harrys jacket pocket, the sound of it vibrating negligible against the cloth, practically inaudible over the shower and the way Eggsy’s moaning and panting and begging.

Harry heard it, just before it stopped, and considered untangling himself from Eggsy, checking his phone in case it was Merlin, except Eggsy was hard to resist, harder to pull away from, and the phone didn’t ring again. If it was Merlin, he knew what they were doing, that they hadn’t answered the phone - if it was important, he could get Roxy. And if it wasn’t Merlin, then nothing was more important than Eggsy wrapping his legs around Harrys waist.

And Harry really doesn’t think about the phone when he’s rifling through the bathroom cupboard, dripping water on the floor, trying to find lube and condoms, Eggsy pressed flush against his back, mouthing at the back of his neck. They can both hear Merlins laughter through the speakers on both their glasses when they can’t find anything, but any actual words are lost.Eggsy snickers against his back when Harry swears in frustration, and Harry raises an eyebrow at him in the mirror.

“Sorry, ‘Arry.” He says, mouth still mostly pressed against Harrys skin. Harry just smiles, short lived frustration gone already, and he bundles Eggsy back into the shower, presses him back against the tile, both of them moving in tandem so Harry can lift the smaller man off his feet. They move so well together it’s hard to believe they haven’t been doing it for years.

It doesn’t take long for them to work each other up again, rutting ad grinding until they’re as desperate as they were when Harry prioritised finding condoms and lube over drying himself with a towel. Except now they know there’s nothing to be had, no way they can go further, and Eggsy regrets his earlier laughter because, fuck, it’s practically a tragedy that Harry can’t fuck him like this.

“Merlin,” Eggsy calls out while he thinks of it, and Harry smiles against his neck, where he’s trying to revive the bruises which haven’t yet had a chance to fade.

“By the time we get back,” he has to stop talking, can’t help the whine that leaves his throat when Harry shifts him easily, adjusting so he’s rutting against Harrys stomach, Harrys cock sliding against his arse, “there’d better be...fucking…” There’s more to the statement, but he hopes Merlin gets the gist because Eggsy’s forgotten what he was saying, too caught up with the way Harry’s moving against him, how it feels for Harrys cock to just catch at his rim with no chance for anything more.

Eggsy moans again, begs Harry for it, for anything, more than what he’s getting, because he needs more. He’s not quiet about it, knows Roxy’s downstairs, at the other end of the house practically, and he might put on a bit of a show trying to entice Harry to give him more, even though he knows they can’t - Eggsy just likes the way Harry looks when Eggsy wants him past all reason, when he’s completely wanton and shameless and begging for it.

Harrys leaned back enough that Eggsy can slide a hand between them and wrap it around his cock, moaning overly loud just for the way it makes Harry thrust against him, when there’s a firm knock against the bathroom door. They both freeze, awkwardly, because there’s no way Roxy didn’t hear Eggsy.

“What, Rox?” Eggsy calls out, because Harry looks utterly mortified, and it’s Eggsy’s friend after all, he should man up and ask what’s happened that’s important enough it couldn’t wait ten more minutes.

“Sasha.” A deep voice answers instead, and Eggsy can feel himself blanch white because, no. That, fuck, oh everything that’s holy, _it can’t be._

“You did not answer my call; I grew worried. Are you okay?”

Dear Jesus, it is.

His grandfather is on the opposite side of the bathroom door; his grandfather, not Roxy, had knocked and - and heard them, heard _him_.

Eggsy can feel all arousal flee at the sound of his grandfathers voice, at the realisation, and Harry obligingly sets him back on his feet. It takes a few seconds before Eggsy can actually reply, and he has to clear his throat first, too.

“I - ’m fine; I’ll be down in a minute.”

“No rush, Sasha. Take your time; now that I know you are safe I will converse with your friend.” He sounds jolly, exactly how he sounded when he’d call Eggsy to get updates about his grades, or when he wished Eggsy happy birthday and Eggsy highly doubts he’ll get hard ever again. They don’t hear Ivan walk away, but Eggsy didn’t expect to.

Eggsy looks up at Harry, reassured to find that the man looks calmer than Eggsy does, not that that’s saying much.

“Shall we continue this later?” Harry offers, and Eggsy nods.

“I think ’m impotent, now, so we’ll see.” Harrys mouth quirks up into a grin, and Eggsy can’t help but grin back, even as he ducks around Harry to finish actually showering.

Merlin, when they put the glasses back on, is still laughing.

“Prick.” Eggsy says fondly. Merlin, predictably, keeps laughing. Which he understands, only - it’s all fun and games until everyone finds out your grandfather’s ex-KGB.  


Eggsy wonders if Merlin’ll still be laughing, then.

Eggsy's gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Angy, who corrected my Russian, and to ffaddict who pointed out a typo <3 <3 <3 
> 
> Also, thanks to Osmani Garcia because I could hear El Taxi blasting through the walls from my diagonal neighbours party during most of this. And now I have it stuck in my head which, not actually a bad thing.


	12. Chapter 12

Eggsy remembers the first time he killed someone, looking through a scope at the poor mug that was his target and pulling the trigger - that was not as daunting as walking towards the kitchen, Harry half a step behind him. The temptation to grab Harry and run is surprisingly little - he’s not ashamed of Harry or Merlin, or his grandfather, for that matter - he just wants everything to go smoothly. And the likelihood of the upcoming meeting going well is… Eggsy doesn’t actually want to calculate it, ta.

They approach the kitchen, and Eggsy fiddles with the glasses in his hands. Harry’s already wearing his, but Eggsy’s contemplating whether he wants to hear people yelling at him at once. Four, if Roxy decides to get in on it, though he doubts she will. His friend is more the watch and laugh type when it comes to family confrontations.

He slides them on half a step before he reaches the kitchen door, and can’t help but smile as he comes in near the end of Merlin comforting Harry that everything will be fine, Eggsys grandad isn’t going to hate him on sight. Eggsy can’t help the nosie he makes at that, half disbelieving; the look on Harrys face when Eggsy turns to give him a thumbs up is pure panic.

“He’s never been good with meeting the family, and you go and do that?” Merlin scolds him, though more amused than annoyed, and Eggsy shrugs.  
Eggsy pushes the kitchen door open, and is torn between being happy at seeing his grandfather again and complete mortification. The look on his grandfather's face says he will be telling everyone - his family may take the no internal secrets rule a bit too far, which means not only will he never live this down, but they’re all going to be pissed when they find out what he’s spent the last few months doing.

He’s wrapped into a giant hug before he can think about that for more than a few seconds. He’s missed his family, in the months of no contact, has missed feeling completely at ease with the people around him, and somehow he’s also missed being the baby of the family. He doesn’t know how he’s missed that, since it’s always scraped at bit raw, but having his grandfather coo at him like he’s still a bub makes him feel better now.

He can tell the exact moment his grandfather registers Harry, who walked in after Eggsy. And by Merlins colourful swearing half a second later, his facial recognition software attached a name where Eggsy had refused to. Ivan lets Eggsy go, presses his shoulders once, with a smile, before he shifts his entire focus to Harry. And Eggsy, well, he hasn’t seen that sort of focus in his grandfather since there was a huge blow up in the US, a few years ago, with some of his old friends.

Fuck.

“Mr. Hart.”

Double fuck.

“Ivan Simanov.” Merlin says, and Harrys entire face goes blank; triple fucking fuck.

“Mr. Simanov.” Harry sounds completely detached, face blank and all signs of nerves and panic visible in the hallway long gone.

“It has been years since last we met.” His grandfather was smiling, but it was not a particularly nice smile.

“Indeed.” Harry, on the other hand, had his lips pressed do firmly together it was a surprise that he could prise them apart in order to reply.

“Come, sit.” Ivan said, bearing more of his teeth as he gestured to the kitchen bench where Roxy was watching on with an expression like she was watching a car wreck.

“Thank you.” Harry inclined his head, and walked a wide path around Ivan in order to get to the bench, pulling out a seat. He looked at Eggsy expectantly, who had no clue what to do.

“Sit down, ye daft bugger.” Merlin rumbled through the headset, which is what spurred Eggsy into action and he almost tripped over himself trying to sit down as fast as possible. The lines around his grandfathers eyes tighten, and both he and Harry take the two remaining seats, across from each other. Apparently the default for this situation is awkward, uncomfortable, unfailing politeness. It’s making Eggsy twitchy.

“How have you been, since last I saw you?” Harry asks, prim and proper like he’s having tea with the bleeding queen.

“Since last you saw me, or last I heard of you? Because last I saw you, you attempted to shoot my friend; last I heard, you told me my son was dead.”

Oh, fuck _everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever realise you've written yourself into a corner? I wanted to post this last weekend (happy belated birthday, Beth!) except I sat down and was just like 'I have no idea how Ivan is going to react, or how Harry is, fuck' and when I finally got an idea I got about a paragraph and a half in before my flatmate was like 'come out' and when I said no, she responded with '¿Por qué no?' about twenty times in a row, and then argued with me in Spanglish and German for a while, but she was already really drunk and it was hilarious - so I went out and lost my rhythm, so I have no idea when the continuation will be up, sorry. <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much italicisation in this chapter but, to be fair, Eggsy's a wee bit tense.

“Gazelle?” Valentines confused, groggy voice floated in from the dining room adjascent to the kitchen and, to Eggsy, it sounded like the voice of God handing down a benediction. Eggsy might have to start going to church or something, because from the moment Harry and Ivan locked eyes he knew that nothing short of divine intervention was going to get everyone - but mainly him - out of the situation. That’s not to say that Eggsy’s a coward, because it’s been well documented that he’s not, it’s just that given a choice between Harry and his grandfather, well… he’d really rather not, ta very much.

Regardless, that pleasant, non threatening grin on Ivans face was not a thing you ever wanted aimed at anyone you cared about, meaning Eggsy was about to bite the (hopefully) metaphorical bullet and step (metaphorically) between them

Except, Valentine’s awake, now, and they can all go deal with him and his plans for… whatever the fuck it was that he was planning. Honestly, Eggsy’s got no clue what he was trying to achieve with the whole unimpeded, uncontrolled violence thing. According to the trial run, won by Harry, Eggsy’s pretty sure, even if it wasn’t really a competition, it’d be a pretty terrible thing to happen on any sort of scale, let alone a large one.

“I’ll just check on that, shall I?” His chair scrapes against the tiles with a horrible sound as he stands up, but no one flinches at the screech, and he doesn’t even bother to push it back in in his rush to leave the room. They could deal with the developing situation that was the apparent history between Harry and Ivan _after_ the Valentine crisis was over. Or, preferably, never. Because of course they’ve met before, in less than favourable circumstances and, to be truthful, Eggsy’s not even sure leaving them alone in the same room is a good idea. He wouldn’t put it past Ivan to, you know, get rid of what he viewed as a problem with no witnesses. 

Not that Harry’s a problem, not for Eggsy - but from the sound of it, Ivan thinks he is. And for him to know any different, Eggsy would’ve had to stick around and explain it instead of taking the first out presented to him. Luckily, though, Roxy was there, hopefully mediating the frosty silence which’d arisen between the two of them before Valentine intruded upon the tense situation. Or, at the very least, she was acting as a witness to any potential crimes of maiming and murder.

Except, five seconds after Eggsy makes his break for the kitchen door, he hears her light footsteps behind him. He can’t even say anything, because he just knows she’d make him explain in detail and then his grandfather would know everything. Eggsy’s all for telling him, eventually, in the right setting. In a distinctly less high stress environment, hopefully with more than an hour between pretty much walking in on Eggsy and Harry and, if Eggsy was really lucky, over a telephone line. That is, of course, the same plan he’s been thinking about for letting his family know about his new job.

It’s a very adaptable plan.

“You’re that valet!” Valentine says, upon catching sight of Eggsy. The younger man doesn’t respond, because he’s too busy trying to listen to what’s happening behind him. He can’t hear anything, but in their line of work, that doesn’t really mean much. Hopefully they’re still just standing there in stony silence, and then Eggsy can flee out the back door and avoid all his problems forever.

Remember, not a coward; just sensible.

“So,” Eggsy starts, just as he hears two chairs moving, followed by two sets of carefully measured footsteps. Thankfully, they don’t seem to be indicating any sort of aggression towards each other and are, in fact, headed towards the dining room where Eggsy and Roxy are watching a trussed up Valentine attempt to squirm his hands free and not look at the blood he’s covered in. Eggsy’s a bit relieved; he’s never been point on an interrogation before, and if he can just hand it over to Harry or, hell, Ivan, he’ll be happy to.

Unless Roxy wants it, of course, but the way she’s eyeing up the dried blood and vomit, she’s not too keen on getting any closer to Valentine than she has to.

“So what? Where’s Gazelle?” Valentine asks, when Eggsys silence has stretched for a beat too long.

“Dead.” He answers, simply, and Valentine slumps against his restraints, face unbearably sad. Eggsy’d have a lot more compassion for him if he hadn’t tried to have Harry killed. He regrets that he essentially took a gun to a fist fight, but only in an abstract way; after all, he’d rather be alive than have fought honourably. It’s a lesson literally all of his family have taken pains to teach him, ever since he could remember. One of his primary teachers had, for a while, used a Friday morning slot as a time for the children to share thing they’d learnt at home. The phrase ‘ _There is no honour among dead men_ ’ made her blanch white around the edges of her face and call his mum.

Harry and Ivan finally arrive in the room after what, Eggsy’s sure, was the ultimate stare off about who’d walk through the door first.

“More importantly, however, you’re still alive.” Eggsy’s trying to think of a delicate, but appropriately threatening, way of coaxing the information he needs out of Valentine. He’s very aware that not only are Harry and Merlin and Roxy watching, and he does so want to impress them, but Ivan is also watching. Is probably getting ready to grade his performance, and then share notes with everyone else. There’ll likely be a test on it, too.

Before he can continue, however, the opening notes of _De Miei Bollenti Spiriti_ ring from Ivans phone; it is one of three personalised ringtones on his phone, leaving no doubt as to who’s calling. And, Eggsy knows it’s a massive tell, but he can’t help the way he freezes because there is no way it’s a coincidence. He turns to look at his grandfather, who doesn’t even have the decency to look abashed.

“You didn’t answer phone; then we worried together.”

“Did you call back the all clear?” Hopefully, otherwise they’d both be in trouble.

“Of course. I sent text that you were _indisposed_.” The way he says is leaves no doubt about which way he was indisposed, and there’s very little chance that the subtext wasn’t conveyed in the text. If subtext as even needed. His Dedushka was not always a subtle man. Like now; he’s blatantly side eyeing Harry, who’s valiantly pretending he doesn’t notice. Or, maybe he’s pretending that Ivan doesn’t exist, at all, Eggsy’s not quite sure.

“I did not know then who your…” Here Ivan pauses, still looking at Harry like he’s trying to think of an appropriate word, before settling on, “ _friend_.” It’s said in such a flat, Russian tone that nonetheless holds a world of disdain and Eggsy feels the instinctual urge to about face and flee the room with Roxy, and just let the pair of them duke it out. That tone of voice has never heralded anything good.

Just like nothing good has ever come from missing a call from his grandmother, and his dedushka obligingly throws him the phone. Eggsy hesitates barely a second before cutting off Pavarotti's deep, beautiful voice, and answering the phone.

“Baba.” It’s the second time in three days that he’s talked to her on the phone, and both times he’s been met with a frosty reception. He’s not quite sure what she’s more upset about but, knowing her and the slightly out of whack priorities his family has compared to most people, it’s-

“And when, precisely, were you going to tell me, tell _us_ ” because she’s definitely on speaker phone, “that you’re in a relationship?” There’s the deep rumble which Eggsy knows is Mishka speaking just too low for the phone to make out words, or perhaps too far away. The answering voice is probably Nastya, and Eggsy kind of wants to hand the phone right over to Harry and let him deal with it but he doesn’t deserve to be thrown into the deep end like that. He’d hand it back to his Ded, but they’d just conspire and that’d do noone any good.

“First off, Baba, who said anything about a relationship?” Even through the glasses he can hear Merlin take a sharp breath, and he can practically hear the way Harrys spine stiffens, though he can’t see him. He hadn’t meant it like that, though technically they still haven’t talked about feelings like they need to, so _technically_ there’s not a relationship, but that’s not the point, he’s _trying_ to do damage control.

Not even finished his first mission, and already he needs a holiday. Talk about your work related stress.

“So you just cover up kidnapping and brutal murder of all casual sex friends, then?” Mishka asks, voice over loud, probably leaning too close to the phone as he talks - more than likely scowling at the contact picture of Eggsy, as if he can feel it through the call. Eggsy _can_ , actually, but he’s trying to ignore it.

“What? No! Doesn’ matter, cause it‘s actually got nothing to do with my relationship with them-” He can’t change words halfway through, so he just pushes through and hope that they assume he’s using ‘them’ as a gender neutral term, rather than as a plural. Except,

“Them? As in plural?” Eggsy’s not sure whether Roxy’s asking because she wants to know and is in too much shock to keep her mouth shut, or if she’s said it deliberately loud just to stir shit up some more. A quick glance at her settles it; she’s not getting a Christmas present from him.

“Really? Your relationship with these… people,” Zhenka says, like maybe they’re not actually people, “has nothing to do with your wanting to cover for them? Because you would not be so sloppy. We taught you better.” It’s just his luck that Merlin can hear the conversation through the glasses. He’s probably patched Roxy and Harry in too. He doesn’t really want to think of the implications of what Zhenka’s just revealed, but he can’t stop his mind from spinning. He doesn’t want Merlin and Harry to think he’s lied to them, that he’s purposefully deceived them even though, technically he has.

But it’s only a minor technicality. He only roughed himself up a bit, that’s all - it’s not like he changed his entire personality, or pretended to be someone else. He just… wanted to be what Harry wanted, and there wasn’t really time to take it back, and it helped him get through training underestimated by almost everyone, which just ended up building the slight lie and…

If this costs him Merlin and Harry, he’s going to pull Zhenkas kneecaps out.

“No, it doesn’t. Now, if you’d give me a sec to talk-” Eggsy is cut off again and this is the problem with large families when you try to conference call or when you put it on speaker phone. Everyone wants to talk at once, and no one wants to listen. This particular call continues something like this,

“Two lovers? Apple stay with tree, eh?” Pyotr says slyly, probably while elbowing Mishka, while at the same time Maria says,

“I have heard word that all in church are dead. Violent, but crude. Is this the work of your lover?” Her problem is with the crude part, Eggsy already knows.

“Oh Pyotr, some tact, please, if you could.” His Baba says and then everyone’s talking all over each other, and Eggsy has to pull the phone away from his ear before they give him hearing damage.

“I blame you, just so you know.” He tells Roxy, mildly, but she just grins at him.

“This makes me feel better about my family drama, to be honest.” She says, just as calm, and Eggsy hits the speaker button on the screen. A wave of noise engulfs them, and Eggsy raises an eyebrow, looking at her and trying to not look anywhere near Harry, or his Dedushka, who probably knows exactly how the conversation devolved just from listening to Eggsys side. It’s a lot of noise after sudden silence and Valentine, the only one caught unaware, jerks violently on the chair.

“Riiiiight. I’m not normally the type of guy who interferes with other peoples business,” Valentine says, and Eggsy suspects it’s a lie because _only_ people too involved with the lives of others try to take over the world. But, oddly enough, the dull roar of half shouted Russian and English cuts off at the sound of his voice.

“Is that him? One of them?” His grandmother asks, in a clear demand, and Eggsy’s had just about enough.

“Actually,” Valentine starts to say and, yeah, no, Eggsy’s just crossed the line; he is completely done with this entire situation.

“ _You_ , shut up. The rest o’ you - _no_ , that is not one of ‘em. For your information, I’m in a sexual relationship with two men, both of whom are significantly older than me, since I know that’s the next interruption, but I ain’t finished, so keep a lid on it. It’s been less than a week and we haven’t talked about feelin’s yet but, _yes_ , I do think we might be in an actual relationship once we get to that talk - which better happen soon, I fuckin’ _swear_ , ‘Arry, Merlin - which means that, _yes_ , you’ll need two extra places at Christmas, and New Years, and my birthday dinner but, _no_ Vitya, there will not be a need for extra bedrooms to be made up at your summer home because I _will_ be fucking both of them while we're there.” He turns away from Valentine, trusting Roxy to watch his back, to look at Ivan.

“ _Yes_ , that means you can’t shoot him. That goes for both of you.” He looks at Harry, who has the good sense to keep his mouth shut, unlike his Dedushka.

“But-”

“ _ **No**_. And for the benefit of the people who aren’t in the room but _clearly want to be_ , the man who spoke before is the man we kidnapped, which we did _after_ the church massacre, which he engineered by the way, in his plot for some sort of world dominance, I’m sure, and _after_ we shot him _and_ his guards _and_ his assistant slash bodyguard but _before_ I had sex in the shower with my older, handsome lover who, _yes_ Nastya, is sexually proficient, they both are because I know you were about to interrupt to ask. And _yes_ , I did fall head over heels in love with both of them at first sight, you can all settle the bets I know you've had since I was born.

“ _Now_ , is everyone satisfied they’re up to date on the situation at hand? Do you need me to run through anything else, or can I get back to the mission I’ve been assigned in order to make sure a megalomaniac doesn’t have any backup plans which could kill potentially millions of people for no god damned reason I can ascertain apart from being completely _fucking_ bonkers.” The silence after his loud, frustrated rant is almost deafening, but Harry looks very pleased, so at least that’s something. The silence stretches on and Eggsy realises where he’s gone wrong at exactly the moment his grandmother cuts through silence with her sharp voice.

“Mission?”

Today is _really_ not his day.

“You know what, Baba, can we deal with that later? I’ll come over for a cuppa after we deal with this. I’ll answer anything you want, we’ll make an entire afternoon outta it. As an incentive for us to not have this chat right now, please, I’ll even make sure ‘Arry and Merlin come with me. Tea, biccies and interrogation, how ‘bout it?” There silence as she thinks it over, and Eggsy knows that they’re having a wordless discussion about it, but he already knows they’ll agree. He hands the phone off to Roxy before they’ve officially decided, and turns back to Valentine. His voice is cheery when he speaks, as he leans to make sure he’s got eye contact, opens with,

“Right, guv, you’re gonna tell us everything about your plan, and your operation, or I’m going to beat you until you’re broken and screaming and wishing you’d taken me up on me first offer.” Fuck good interrogation technique, or impressing his new colleagues or his dedushka, right now he kind of wants Valentine to throw the offer back in his face with some bullshit bravado just so Eggsy has the excuse to hit something. The man looks like he’s weighing up his options, and after all that Eggsy does feel as if there’s a weight off his chest, so he offers one last chance, from whatever reserve of patience he has left after the clusterfuck that the entire afternoon has been.

“Those people you just heard, they’re my family. My childhood was… unconventional. I’ve been able to shatter kneecaps since before I could tell time on an analogue clock.” It’s a bit of a deceptive statement, in that it actually took him until he was ten to be able to read traditional clocks; a lot of children have trouble with analogue, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

“But, really, what do you expect when you’re raised by ex-KGB? Well,” Eggsy crouches down, leans in so he has to look up into Valentines eyes, to make sure that his message really gets through, “that’s a bit of a misnomer, because when I say ex-KGB-” Eggsy is, once again, interrupted.

“OK! I’ll talk! Yo, Deville, get your boy away from me first, though.” Harry takes two steps forward, slowly, making Valentine sweat, before he places a hand on Eggsys shoulder. He moves back, reluctantly, and stands by Roxy.

“I hope you realise that, if you lie to us,” Harry doesn’t even get to finish his threat, which is a shame, because the silky, deadly voice he was using was a thing of beauty and Eggsy would really, _really_ like to hear it again.

“You’ll set him on me again, I get it. I’ll spill everything right here, no need for rough stuff. Just… did you see his eyes? And that smile? You should get him a psychiatrist or something, man, that ain’t right.” Valentine lisps, sending nervous glances at Eggsy every few seconds. Eggsy smiles, satisfying that something, at least, has gone right in the course of this really shit afternoon. He even accepts the phone back of Roxy with good grace.

His family are, predictably, speaking to each other about interrogation techniques, and he feels no shame in throwing out a quick goodbye before hanging up on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long, I just kind of lost inspiration for it but, sitting in the hospital tonight I was like, you know what I feel like? Crazy Russian murder family. Also, finally, everything's out in the open! Yay! Well, almost everything, hehe. Harry and Merlin still have afternoon tea at the in laws to look out for. Oh, and, you know, cleaning up Valentines operation.
> 
> You have no idea how much I want to work the line ' _the family that slays together stays together_ ' into the fic. Thank you for all your reviews, they mean so much to me, and hopefully I don't go so long without a chapter again.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, as I wrote this, I couldn’t help but think ‘wow, while glossing over all the murder shit to make everything easier to write, I may have accidentally glorified parts of the KGB, which is not what I intended to do.’ So, be realistic about the KGB folks. :) Aaaaaaand, this story’s almost finished. And I’ve almost finished writing it which, more importantly, means I can actually promise semi-regular updates until this is completed. Aw yeah. And by semi-regular I mean I’m house sitting with no internet, so whenever I get to go home/somewhere with internet access and I have my laptop, you’ll get the next (and second last, by my count) update.

“So, Mr. ...Hart, was it?” His grandmother starts, before they’ve even got Valentine off the plane. Eggsy’s not surprised she’s there - it was Ivans plane they’d used, after all, of course he let her know when they were going to arrive. What’s a bit disappointing is that there’s a distinct lack of KGB agents. During the horrendously awkward silence that’s lasted all the way through the flight, having started after Harry finished interrogating Valentine, Eggsy may have entertained himself trying to decide what Harrys expression would be when confronted with some of the most terrifying KGB agents.

Fortunately, Eggsy gets the pleasure of seeing not only Harry, but Roxy, realise that his grandmother’s the Victoria Winslow.

“Ms. Winslow.” Harry manages to greet, after a moment. She gives him a very icy smile, tilting her head in acknowledgement. And then, from Roxy, who’s halfway through walking Valentine down the stairs,

“You’re Victoria Winslow.” She sounds breathless, and excited, and like she was a fourteen year old meeting someone famous. It quite matches the look on her face, actually, and Eggsy’s glad Merlin’s still recording because he wants to frame the look on her face.

See if he can put it on his next birthday cake.

Her grandmothers smile turns a bit less frosty, and Roxy practically drags Valentine forward, in order to stick her hand out. His grandmother looks more and more amused, especially when Valentine trips over uneven ground, and Roxy just about dislocates his shoulder in order to keep him moving at a pace she approves of.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Ma’am. Rox-”

“My dear, perhaps we should keep the introductions for later.” She flicks a look at Valentine, and Roxy looks mortified. She’d almost said her full name in front of the enemy, which held potentially disastrous consequences, even if he was currently in custody. Eggsy rolls her eyes as his grandmother gives her an indulgent smile, before spearing Harry with a glare.

Finally, she turns her attention to Eggsy.

“Sasha, dear.” She holds her arms out, and Eggsy ducks around Roxy to give his baba a hug.

“Baba.” She pats his back, then his hair, before letting him go.

“Well, we best get this over with. Ivan tells me your leader has been compromised, and you’re unsure as to how many of your agents you can trust. If you’re amenable, I know some people who’d be more than pleased to lend a hand.” 

Eggsy’s not even looking at Harry, but he knows the man’s three seconds from telling her politely, but firmly, that help won’t be necessary, and Eggsy doesn’t really see that going over well.

“Aces, we need all the help we can if we’re going to breach a fucking mountain, right ‘Arry?” No response from Harry, and Eggsy doesn’t bother to look away from his baba. Roxy’s all for it, though, from the way she’s beaming.

“Do you have a plane, or should I get one for you?” Sounding every inch the doting grandmother, like she’s gonna wrap the plane and stuff it under the christmas tree. Actually, Eggsy wouldn’t put it past her. He’s long since learnt that assuming anything about his grandmother - about any of the women in his life - just makes him look like an ass later.

“Yes, we’ve a plane.” Merlin grumbles in his ear, and Eggsy passes on the message.

“Wonderful, I’ll go find the help. Text me the rendezvous, will you? Lovely to see you again, Sasha, and to meet you.” She says to Roxy, clearly excluding Harry. Him, she barely glances at before sweeping off.

“I can’t believe your grandmother is Victoria Winslow. And she shook my hand!” Roxy says, once she’s out of sight and Eggsy only has about three seconds to smirk at her before she’s socking him in the shoulder.

“I can’t believe you never told me!”

-

Eggsy has to say, watching Harry and Merlins faces as the the van opens to reveal the best of the ex-KGB has got to be the single best thing that’s happened to him for at least a month. Well, the single best non-se related thing that’s happened to him for at least a month. He’d even prepared this time, and had set his glasses to record. Roxy seems equally amused, especially since Eggsy was wise enough to warm her before hand, this time.

She still looks a bit star struck at seeing his baba, though.

And when Maria and Nastya gracefully exit the van, Eggsy swears he can see heart eyes.

For the few seconds he can see before he’s swept up into the strong arms of Uncle Mishka. He’s quite sure his aunts and uncles disembarked from the van and crowded straight around him, like their sole purpose in life was tutting over him like mother hens, instead of murder and mayhem. 

“He’s lost weight! Nastya, don’t you think he’s lost weight?” 

“Idiot Vitya, he’s clearly put on more muscle. But he could probably do with more food.” And then Eggsy turns into a pass-the-parcel, except the music is a bunch of old Russians judging him loudly.

“I’ll make blini when we get home.”

“Yes, what have you been eating recently?”

“What are you wearing? This is why you never wear clothes Ivan chooses.”

“What a horribly American looking pair of shorts.”

“There’s still blood behind his ears - why type of shower did he have?” There’s a hand rubbing away at what must be a miniscule speck of blood.

“We all know what type of shower he was having.” The group’s split between laughter and disapproving noises.

“If you had only said you liked older men, we could have found someone for you.”

“Proper Russian men, who clean up their messes.”

“I could find you a multitude of men, who could please you at your leisure.” That’s Aunt Maria, again, and wait a second, why is he still being passed around if they’ve all had a hug? They’ve got work to do. Mishka gets him once more, and holds on tighter for a few seconds before he lets Eggsy worm his way out of the circle.

Roxy looks delighted. EVen though she doesn’t speak Russian, it was very clear what was happening. And the likelihood she’d recorded it in order to translate it later, just to properly laugh at him, is astronomically high. 

And then it happens - the thing Eggsy had really been hoping to avoid, at least until they finish rescuing all the hostages from Valentines base. Collectively, his aunts and uncles turn to look at Harry and Merlin. Their expressions range from blank faced - Aunts Nastya and Maria and Uncle Zhenka - to blood minded and completely fucked up - Uncles Vitya and Petya. Possibly the scariest, however, is Uncle Mishkas polite, welcoming smile. He’s never seen the man smile that that before, and, to Eggsy, it screams of a trap.

Then again, if Merlin or Harry are stupid enough to fall for it, they probably deserve whatever Mishka’s got in store for them.

“Truly, this is a pleasure. It is good we shall have time to get to know each other, on the flight.” Mishka says.

“During the mission.” There’s a wicked glint in Marias eyes that says Harry and Merlin definitely don’t want to meet up with her at any point in the mountain.

“In an alley way.” And might possibly want to stay away from Petya for the rest of their natural lives.

Of course, Eggsy can see the ridiculous amusement they’re getting from the entire situation. It’s subtle, and you’d probably have to know them as well as Eggsy does to see it, but it’s enough that he knows they’re only half serious. And Harry and Merlin do look funny. Harry looks like the picture of offended upper class toff, and Merlin looks like he’s prepared to go to war.

“Right!” Eggsy claps his hands together to break the stretching, heavy silence, and goes to help his grandmother and Roxy unload the veritable arsenal which is tucked into the back of the van. After a few moments, the others break from their group staring contest and help.

“It’s truly an honour to meet you both as well.” He hears Roxy say, as she’s passing a small case of ammo to Nastya, Maria comparing two handguns about half a foot away.

“I mean, I know you were both KGB, the old enemies, as it were, but, truly, I’ve studied some of your work and it’s gorgeous. I mean, the ‘89 Oslo hit on Porter…” Eggsy doesn’t get to hear the rest of it, carrying things into the plane as he is, but he can imagine. He’s glad Roxy’s getting on okay with his family. Someone’s got to, and it doesn’t look like Harry or Merlin are going to get there anytime soon. But, perhaps they’ll feel differently after the mission. Eggsy knows that going on missions with his family always makes him appreciate them more. The family that slays together, stays together, after all.

On second thought, probably best not to tell that last part to either of them. Ease them in gently, as it were.

-

They’ve just finished loading the plane when Merlin accidentally discovers the perfect way to harass Eggsy's family.

Eggy’s in the doorway of the cockpit, knowing Merlin’ll have to walk past him in order to actually fly the plane. There hasn’t really been time to see how Merlin’s doing, between deposing Arthur - the traitorous bastard - and getting ready to make war on a secure hideaway with intel that’s come from a dodgy source. Thankfully Merlin doesn’t just brush past him.

“Alright, guv?” Eggsy asks, and Merlin smiles down at him.

“Aye, lad. And yourself?”

“Peachy.” Merlin rumbles a laugh, and swoops down to draw Eggsy into a kiss. The temperature in the cabin drops by about twenty degrees. It’s a chaste kiss, too, not even the filthy ones Eggsy so enjoys - if they saw one of those, they might even achieve snow. Merlin pulls back, and there’s a mischievous look in his eyes and Eggsy knows that, as soon as the mission’s over, his lover’s going to take this new found discovery and run with it. Harry too, by the looks of it.

Ivan finally comes up the stairs, and pulls the door shut, which means Merlin can start to prepare for take off. His grandfather had taken a later flight, having stayed in America to properly clean the church crime scene, and had only arrived half hour before. Eggsy makes to head over and Merlin manages to achieve something Eggsy’s never seen before in his life. 

Merlin gives Eggsy rump a firm pat, and Ivan stops his enthusiastic, verbose and loving greeting of Baba and Uncle Mishka.

Smartly, he then disappears into the cockpit, leaving Harry to deal with the collective ire of Eggsy's family.

It’s a long flight.

-

With all of them, taking the mountain is… well, okay, it’s still a bitch to do, given the amount of security and the ridiculous level of armament the place has going for it, but it’s also not the hardest thing Eggsy’s ever had to do. It’s fun, actually. Seeing the creepy party room, after they’d killed or captured all the guards, is weird, but it does have a fully stocked bar.

You’ve not seen happy Russians until you’ve seen them realise that there’s nothing stopping them from making off with literally all the alcohol they can carry. Eggsy makes three trips. Of course, that’s after they release the hostages.

(Well, the second and third trips were, at least.)

It take a while to get all the hostages sorted - a good, long while - but eventually they’re done. Debrief can wait until, well, until they get a new Arthur. It takes another hour or two to find if any of the other Kingsmen had turned traitor - one, Kay. Bors and Tristan had actually been found in Valentines cells, both of them halfway to escaping after having been captive since the previous night. Both of them had been quite disgruntled about the whole process, and shocked to see so many ex-KGB. The discovery of the ‘free bar’ had done a lot to foster friendship between them and the Russians, however. If only it were that easy for Harry and Merlin.

All in all, it’s a thoroughly exhausted foursome who are all ready to go home and go to sleep. Even Merlin, deciding that with the crisis over, he can leave everything in the hands of the Witches - Eggys trying to cajole him into turning off his phone, when Eggys starts to ring.

“Yes, Baba?”

“Ten a.m, the day after tomorrow, at your mother's house. I assume that won’t be a problem for either of your… men.” Even if it weren’t, they’d make it.

“Course. See you then.” Before he can hang up, though, she speaks the worst thing he could possibly hear.

“Do be sure to bring Ms. Morton; she’s an absolute delight. Nastya’s thinking of taking on an apprentice, you know, and I’m sure we could work something out with that organisation of yours.” There’s no way Roxy’s going to pass up watching Eggsy’s uncomfortable mediation of the tete-a-tete between his lovers and his family. On the positive side, if Eggsy saves the second bit of news until they arrive at morning tea, maybe she’ll be too awestruck or excited to focus on Eggsy’s pain.

...Yeah, Eggsy doesn’t think that’ll work, either.

-

They sleep for about fourteen hours, all three of them, tangled up in Harry and Merlins huge bed. It’s great.

Then they have so much sex Eggsy can’t feel his legs, and there’s a persistent ache in his arse that feels fantastic. It’s great sex, as always, but it’s even better after such a stressful couple of days. Reaffirming that they’re all alive, and safe, and whole, give or take a few scrapes and bruises, is what finally kicks Eggsy out of the tense, hyper aware state he’s been in since the church. Pressed between his lover's, worn out and sweat still cooling on his skin, Eggsy thinks for a moment before asking,

“So, after tomorrow, do you want to go out on a date?” It takes a few seconds for Harry and Merlin to respond, given their chuckles, but they do soon enough.

“Aye, a date’d be lovely.”

“We could even go steady.” Harry snarks.

“Shut up, Harry, else I’ll only date Merlin, and just use you for your cock.” Eggsy jokes, and Harry quirks an eyebrow.

“Only my cock?”

“If he thinks that’s all you’re good for, you’ve clearly not been doing it right, Harry. Here, I’ll show you how it’s done.” Merlin chimes in, and then both of the pull away from Eggsy, but only so they can get their mouths on him.

Which, also great.

Finding hickeys everywhere, including too high on his neck to cover - less great.

Bastards.

-

There almost at his mums place when Eggsy realises that he’s been so caught up in the drama of the cold war redux, that he’s completely forgotten about the most crucial, most explosive and unpredictable element of the entire situation.

His mother.

Mum, who’s last sight of Harry Hart had been when he’d told her her husband was dead.

It’s far too late to back out now, but he’s thinking of escape route right up to Harry knocking on the front door. Then he’s just wondering what type of wake Harry wants. At least he’ll have Merlin to help him plan it… unless his mum finds out Merlin was also on the mission…

Roxy steps up behind him, blocking his last escape route, and then it’s officially all over.

The door opens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...actually, I'm go ahead an add a little interlude in case it's fucking ages until I update again.


	15. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petya and Nastya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a short interlude about how Uncle Petya and Aunt Nastya fell in love, because I have back stories for all of the ex-KGB I've made up, and maybe it'll amuse some of you. Not plot essential, so feel free to skip it if you have no interest in such things.

When Pyotr first hears about Ivans lady love, and how he fell in love, he laughs. Of course Ivan would fall for a woman who dislocated his shoulder and stole his kill, because Ivan is _crazy_. Pyotr would never do something so foolish. He has his eye on someone sensible, one of the girls that works in a factory near his house.

Of course, she turns out to be a spy and breaks his nose. But, worry not, she is a Russian spy, so Pyotr cannot be too angry. He almost ruined her investigation, so it was justified.

He is not in love, not at all, and when he sees her walking past with another female agent at headquarters, he does not make cow eyes at her, no matter what Vanya or Vitya says. He tries to tell them, over lunch, over many lunches, that he is not in love with her. Of course not! She is dangerous, and violent, and smiled so beautifully when she broke his nose, and her hair isn’t even that pretty; it’d always been tied back in the factory, so he couldn’t see more than a stray curl or two. Nobody thinks curls are attractive - certainly not Pyotr. And her dark skin certainly wouldn’t contrast well with his fair looks - they’d take terrible wedding photos almost certainly.  
Pyotr doesn’t understand why neither of them will listen to him, but it just shows that they’re fools.

Fraternization is against regulation, anyway.

But she returns to her job at the factory, because the man she targeted had a partner who’d stayed in the shadows until now, and her cover hadn’t been blown. She goes back to smiling at him when he walks past.

It plays with his head, because he wants to smile back but regulation, and what if she takes offense and breaks his nose again? What if he doesn’t smile back, and she takes offense and breaks his nose anyway?

(You understand, of course, that this was when he was still young enough to care about regulations and broken noses, before he went the way of all good, long lived agents and strolled past the line of clinically insane.)

He smiles back. Pyotr will tell anyone who asks that it’s a carefully calculated ruse, to make sure that her cover is not blown. After all, he had smiled at her before her true identity had been revealed to him, and to change that now could tip off the mark. Vitya laughs, when he tries to explain, and Pyotr tell him firmly that it’s nothing to do with her beautiful brown eyes, or the way when she smiles, his lips curve upwards without his permission.

Vityas infuriating response is,

“ _All I said was Ivan is returning from his mission soon. You are the one who keeps talking about Comrade Anastasia._ ”

Pyotr walks past the factory, day in, day out. And, almost every day, she is there, smiling at him. How she always manages to be outside when he goes past, he does not know. Luckily, he’s getting closer and closer to achieving his goal - soon enough Pyotr finish his work at headquarters and return to the type of mission be prefers. Assassinations, espionage, fighting. He needs it, needs to work out his anger, for he hears the other girls whisper to Nastya about the handsome man who only has eyes for her, and wants to find this handsome man and shoot him in the face. He scowls at every man he sees near Nastya - Anastasia, not Nastya, he does not know her well enough, he should not have presumed.

He sees her in a park one day, and she certainly doesn’t look stunning out of her factory clothes, with her hair free and curling; at least this time, Vitya and Vanya are nowhere in sight, and cannot tease him.If he alters his path in order to walk past her, it is merely because it is a fine day. Pyotr gets closer, and realises that there’s a particularly fine looking man talking with her. His skin is darker than hers, and his suit is quite handsome. He is older than her, by a fair margin, but many women like that, like the stability it can sometimes provide.

Pyotr scowls as she smiles up at the man, and lengthens his stride. The quicker he walks, the faster he can be past them and go back to his home. It is not so fine day, after all.

He will not even stop to talk with her, and it will not matter because she will not see him, too busy smiling at the man - who, surely, must be the man her co-workers talk to her about - to smile at Pyotr. He is almost past, when she calls out to him.

“Petya!” She sounds happy to see him, which is unexpected, as is her voice. They rarely talk - yet another reason why he cannot be in love with her, he shall have to add it to the list, when he returns home. He does not mean to look, because surely she is not talking to him. She’s looking right at him, though, amused.

“Nastya.” Pyotr says, stopping, regardless of how he’d meant to nod and keep walking. How could he continue, after her sweet voice caressed his name in such a manner? The man doesn’t smile at him, and his eyes are narrowed, assessing. Pyotr can’t help but glare back, for the few seconds before his attention is recaptured by Nastya. Wonderful, beautiful Nastya, who has charmed him with her sweet smiles and Violence - and Pyotr is not in love with her. No, that sort of obsessive love is for people like Vanya, who are certifiably insane. Pyotr does not want a woman who could break him as easily as eggs. He wants a sweet wife, a gentle one. That sort of relationship would not bore him, not matter what Vitya said.

“How have you been?” Pyotr cannot think of a single thing to say. His mind has gone blank. It is not a hard question, and now the silence has stretched on too long.

“Rain!” His voice is too loud, and he’s sure they can both see the whites of his eyes - but he was not prepared for this, for her asking about him. He had to coach himself for three days before he worked up the nerve to approach her, outside the factory after work one day. And later that night, she broke his nose. Not a good track record.

“Rain?” She asks, and now the other man, who’s of a height with Pyotr, meaning they’re both significantly taller than Nastya, looks amused.

“Yes. It will rain later, they said. Do you have an umbrella?” She clearly does not.

“Here, take mine.” He panics, shoves it at her, panics further.

“I have to go now.” Pyotr turns around to walk away as quick as possible, as fast as he can while not jogging. She laughs, loud and delighted, her beautiful laughter accompanied by her male companions deeper voice, also laughing. Pyotr might be jogging, just a bit.  
Nastya catches up to him, though, stopping him with a hand on his arm.

“Petya, you cannot go just yet. I have yet to introduce you to my father.” There’s a blank space where Petyas mind should be.

“I… your father?” The man’s slowly strolling towards them, looking delighted by the entire scene he’s just witnessed. Pyotr’s mortified. How much of a worse first impression could he have given?

“Yes.”

“You… want me to meet your father.” She smiles up at him, and curls her fingers around his arm.

“Yes, Petya.”

Oh.

“Really?”

“You are not so good with women, are you?” She laughs, and Pyotr doesn’t mind because it’s true. Give him a gun, or a knife, or even just his hands, and he’ll get the mission done. Give him five minutes alone with a woman he likes, and he’ll tie his tongue in a knot in under thirty seconds.

“Do you mind?” Nastya shakes her head, thankfully, just as her father walks up.

“Father, this is Petya. Petya, my father, Leonid.” His hand is almost crushed in the resulting handshake, but he doesn’t mind. The man could have broken a bone, and he would be hard pressed to care.

“I have heard a lot about you.” A large hand descends onto his shoulder, not painful, just firm, as Leonid smiles at him.

“What are your thoughts on dinner?”

“I lover her. I mean dinner. I love… dinner.” Petya hides his face in his hands. He can hear Vanya and Vitya laughing already - and the actual laughter of Leonid. Nastya’s hand squeezes his arm, and she presses a light kiss to his hands, right over where his mouth would be. She’s blushing, he finds, and it looks as beautiful on her as everything else does.

It is not the smoothest of first impressions, but it is truthful, and Pyotr cannot regret it, even with all the teasing he endures from his friends - from everyone who hears the story, actually.

After all, it had made Nastya smile at him, and hold his hand and, eventually, marry him.

 

“Wait,” he asks her later, as he walks her home from the factory, “the other women think I’m handsome?” She rolls her eyes.

“Of course. It is lucky you are so bad with women, and that you only had eyes for me.” She tells him, curled into his side as they walk.

“Why?”

“I might’ve had to pluck out a wandering eye, should you have looked at another like you do me.” Pyotr can’t help but laugh.

“I can safely say that I will never look at another woman the way I look at you.”

 

Their wedding photos are gorgeous.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Slides in a year and a bit later with no excuse, but cool finger guns*

 

“Egg!” Is certainly not the welcome that Harry or Merlin expected, but it’s the best welcome that Eggsy could possibly think of. He grins and crouches down to greet Daisy, who’s delighted to see him.

“Egg, Egg, Egg, Egg, Egg, Egg, Egg.” She chants as he pulls her into a hug and then picks her up. Her vaguely stick hands pat his face with delight.

“How’ve you been, цветок?” He asks, and instantly she switches from his name to a rousing story about how she’d drawn twelve flowers that morning, one for each person who was coming today, but that Mum had had to help her write the names of everyone. By the time she trails off, the front door is closed behind them, and there’s truly no escape.

“Daisy, this is Harry, and Merlin, and Roxy.” He introduces her, and she holds out her hand primly for each of them to shake. She looks down her nose at the three of them in a remarkable impersonation of Baba’s ‘ _ I’m judging you but too well bred to say anything _ ’ look. She holds it for a few seconds, before she squirms around in Eggsy’s arms and he puts her down. She races off, and then it’s just the four of them. Or, assumably. Eggy’s not so convinced. No one’s going to let a four year old open the front door on her own.

“Aunt Maria?” He guesses, and the amused laughter lets him know he’s wrong. Aunt Nastya steps around the corner, and quickly enfolds Eggsy into a hug. She pats his cheeks and gives him a quick once over with the requisite clucking, before she bushes past Harry and Merlin with a brief nod of acknowledgement  to pull Roxy into a hug. Roxy looks positively delighted.

“So good of you to come. I set your place with me.” She tells Roxy, after she’s let her go.

“приятно видеть вас снова.” Roxy says. Some of the syllables are a bit off, but over all it’s a great attempt at ‘nice to see you again.’ Even though he can only see his Aunt’s back, Eggsy can see she’s thrilled at the effort Roxy’s gone to. Nastya claps her hands together, and ushers Roxy past the three men, and further into the house, already inquiring about Roxy’s specialisations. From the brief look Nastya throws over her shoulder, Eggsy can already tell that his friend has been officially claimed.

“Right. That was my Aunt Nastya. Anastasia, rather. Be glad she’s so enamoured with Roxy to actually speak with you at the moment because she’s… well. Both her and my Aunt Maria will be the hardest sells. I mean, Vitya’ll be a close third, but apart from that everyone else-”

“Don’t fill their heads with lies, Sasha!” Mishka says, coming into the entryway. “We are all hard sells. You are too old and too English for our dear Sashen’ka.” He glowers down at the pair of them, arms folded. And oh,  _ oh  _ those bastards. Eggsy allows himself to relax internally, because he knows his family very, very well. Eggsy knew they were going to enjoy this, had expected it would be part enjoyment, part actual interrogation. 

He just hadn’t expected it would be  _ all  _ entertainment.

“I beg yer pardon? I’m not English.” Merlin says, clearly offended. Mishka doesn’t say anything, but Eggsy can see not only his amusement, but his appreciation of Merlin speaking up. The large man huffs, apparently unamused. He sweeps forward to greet Eggsy properly, before he swoops out of the room, still glowering at Merlin and Harry. Both seem slightly more nervous after Mishka’s blatant appraisal of them.

Eggsy, for his part, gallantly fights the smirk trying to curl across his lips.

He’d been nervous with Aunt Nastya lurking. Uncle Mishka coming in to puff and glower? That was the biggest tell their family had. For all that he’s still a huge man, despite his age, and for all the kills under his belt, he’s one of the kindest men Eggsy’s ever met, especially towards his family. Not to say that he wouldn’t be willing to rip Merlin and Harry to pieces should they ever hurt Eggsy, but he’s not the sort of man to judge people so vocally without knowing them first.

He’d been sent out to intimidate Harry and Merlin (which wasn’t accomplished, but he sure did make them increasingly nervous), but it had the side effect of letting Eggsy know that whatever was coming was only bluster. None of his family had any real intent to run his lovers off, only to make them sweat. He appreciates the heads up.

Now, Eggsy  _ should  _ let Harry and Merlin in on the secret - but where’s the fun in that?

(And also, they still have to deal with his mum, and Eggsy’s honestly not sure what that’s going to be like, so it’s best for them to keep their guards up anyway.)

So he grabs their hands, and marches them out of the entry way, following Nastya, Mishka and Roxy into the dining room where everyone’s already seated. Hands folded on the table in front of them, heads turned to stare blankly at the three of them. Even Roxy, that traitor. It would be unnerving- well, not really. He can see the amusement in the line of Petya’s shoulders, the slight upwards tick of Maria’s eyebrow, even in the way Vitya is slowly tapping a finger. It could be unnerving, is perhaps a better way of putting it. Unfortunately for them, Eggsy can see straight through them. Merlin and Harry can’t, but they’ve spines of steel, and certainly aren’t going to let themselves be visibly intimidated.

“I guess I should introduce you all properly, ey?” He says, and then notices that there’s one person missing. The table’s got five empty seats. The two singular end seats, a small seat with Daisy’s booster seat on it, and one seat in the middle of each side. That’s where Harry and Merlin are supposed to sit, he imagines, surrounded on all sides by KGB agents. Tricky bastards.

That’s not important right now, because the fourth empty chair should be occupied by his Mum, and she’s not there. Weird, as Eggsy thought she’d be leading the charge.

“Where’s Ma, anyway?” He asks, and his grandmother gestures to the kitchen elegantly.

“Helping Daisy. They’ll be along momentarily. Now, shall we get started?” She doesn’t wait for Eggsy, Harry or Merlin to reply before she says,

“On May eighth, nineteen eighty seven, eleven twenty three pm, what was your whereabouts?” Her eyes are boring into Harry, who’s still standing - all three of them haven’t even had a chance to sit down yet. Harry opens his mouth, ostensibly to speak, but he’s interrupted before he has a chance to.

“Oh, you’re home love!” His mother says, coming in from the kitchen, Daisy on her heels. Daisy has a hand full of what appear to the flowers she’d spoken of earlier, cut from their paper so that she’s kind of holding a bouquet of paper flowers.

“Egg!” She says, running up to him and holding out a flower, which he takes. Then she hands one to Harry, also saying his name, and then to Merlin, though she calls him ‘wizard,’ which visibly delights him. The tense moment of before is broken by Daisy walking around the table and giving everyone a flower. Each of his aunts and uncles take their flower with a grin, and praise their gift, talking of the remarkable colouring work, or the line work, or how much they adore their particular flower. It rather destroys the image they’d been working on.

“Lovely to meet you, I’m Michelle.” She says, shaking Merlin’s hand, before turning to Harry, still smiling. “And it’s good to see you again under better circumstances.” She says, shaking his hand as well. Eggsy’s very, very relieved. Quietly, but still. His mother was always going to be the wildcard of the situation, but he should’ve known better than to think she’d judge either Harry or Merlin straight off the bat. She’s too classy for that by half, his mum.

“And don’t worry about these lot, they tried to do the same thing to me, first time we met. Stood like a pack of hyenas, waiting for a good feed. Then dear Vitya almost stained Victoria’s white sofa and, well, none of them can keep a straight face to save their lives once Mishka starts to laugh.” She says comfortingly, patting their arms.

“You’ve ruined our plan Michelle!” Petya calls, dramatically clutching at his heart, raising the other to his forehead, paper flower dangling from his fingers, looking remarkably like a delicate Victorian lady about to faint.

“We never get to do this right.” Maria mutters, scowling at Vitya, like it’s his fault that their intimidation routine was ruined again.

“There’s still Daisy.” Eggsy says helpfully, only to get whacked by his mother.

“This entire thing is ridiculous. Why none of you lot can give the regular sort of shovel talk, I’ll never know.”

“Because is ineffective.” Vitya says, standing and reaching for the teapot now that the charade is over with. He’d wanted to beforehand, but had been soundly shouted down with reminders of what happened with Lee and Michelle. Victoria barely refrains from rolling her eyes, but passes her cup for tea nevertheless.

“We were very amused when Lee told us of the ‘shovel talk’ your father gave him.” Ivan chuckles, and Michelle rolls her eyes.

“Dad tried his best. He still doesn’t know you’re all spies and whatnot.” She says, herding Daisy to her seat at the table.

“So this was all just… a ruse?” Harry asks, brow slightly furrowed. “There’s no lingering tension due to our past interactions?” He asks, and there are a round of shrugs and head shakes.

“The past is.” Zhenka says, pushing his tea cup closer to Vitya so the man will provide him with tea also. Vitya acquiesces, though he’s clearly annoyed to have been stuck as the designated tea server when he could be doing something productive, like cleaning knives or guns, while glaring menacingly.  _ One day he’ll get to give a proper ‘shovel talk’, _ he thinks wistfully, watching Daisy spin around in circles.

“Food in the kitchen, then?” Eggsy asks, and Mishka stands up to go with him into the kitchen, which seems to be the signal for the entire table to shuffle around into a less intimidating configuration. The two seats in the middle of the table disappear, leaving one end of the table with three free seats for Eggsy, Harry and Merlin.

“You cannot blame us for trying, ey?” Mishka says as they grab morning tea, and Eggsy laughs, jostling his Uncle’s side.

“Course not. Like I said, there’s still Daisy. I can’t wait.”

“You’re terrible.” Mishka tells him, smiling delightedly.

“I figure if we maybe have a subtle soundtrack in the background, real quiet, just enough to set them on edge..”

His uncle’s laughter beats them back into the dining room, and is as well received as the food.

  
  
  


“This is really not the birthday party I’d imagined.” Harry says, efficiently reloading.

“More blood, less blood, what?” Eggsy asks, using his phone as a mirror to look around the corner.

“Dare I suggest that there are more appropriate venues for a small child’s birthday party?” Eggsy only laughs at the suggestion, but Harry’s not offended. It wasn’t a real suggestion, after all. Daisy’s safe as pie, Queen of the Chaos.

“Egg!” She cheers, as she looks over the rails and spots him, announcing his and Harry’s position to all and sundry.

He swears as they both scramble, dodging opposite directions as someone takes the opportunity to shoot at them. Orange paint splatters the wall they’d just been leaning on, and two pellets take Harry in the leg as Eggsy disappears further into the maze like room.

“Bugger.” Harry says, looking down at the bright paint on his leg. With a sigh he holds the paintball gun over his head, and exits the area. He passes by Nastya and Roxy as he goes, both of them smirking at him, the orange tape on their guns letting him know exactly who he has to thank for his elimination.

He grumbles quietly as he ascends to stairs to the viewing platform, about what a tremendously bad idea it had been to let Lancelot anywhere near those damn KGB agents.

“ _Ex_ -KGB.” Pyotr says as Harry takes one of the vacant seats, watching the action unfold below them. Daisy, crown on her head, toddles over with all the airs and graces possible. She reaches up, and Harry picks her up, setting her on his lap. She gives his face a conciliatory pat, and offers him a jelly bean that’s been held in her hand so long the jelly bean has gone clear, colour staining her hand instead. He kindly allows for her to keep it, and she wastes no time in eating it.

“Who do you think will win now, little flower?” Zhenka asks, where he sits next to Michelle, green splattered across his chest, a match for the purple on Pyotr. Daisy slides out of his lap, and peers down into the maze again.

“Roxy!” She shouts, little arms pointing straight at the woman, revealing her hiding place in a very similar manner to how Harry and Eggsy had been found. Zhenka, Pyotr and Michelle all smother giggles as Roxy only barely dodges a hail of paintballs, following Nastya around a corner.

“Very devious.” Harry comments, and thanks Michelle as she passes over a cuppa. Then,

“Can you see Merlin, Daisy?”

  
  
  
  


Eggsy’s fiddling with the wires for the fairy lights, hidden by the Christmas tree, when he hears someone approach Merlin- or, no. He doesn’t hear anyone approach, only knows his Aunt Maria is there when she speaks. She’s much too good to have audible footsteps, especially on carpet as thick and soft as the one in his grandmother’s lounge room.

Eggsy can see, through the branches and tinsel and baubles, that Merlin jumps at her voice, turning around quickly. He can also see his Aunt’s impassive face. Merlin, in a valiant attempt at politeness, tries to ask how her night has been so far.

“I died once.” She tells him, “Would you like to?” She threatens, and then the Christmas tree falls into them both, disturbed from it’s post by Eggsy’s sudden, enthusiastic laughter. Vitya appears from around the corner, and raises an eyebrow when he sees the scene.

“This is not the plan.” He tells her, and she shrugs.

“We did not plan for Sasha.” She replies, before the pair of them turn and leave the lounge room. Merlin, holding the weight of the Christmas tree, looks so utterly bewildered that it takes Eggsy a good two minutes to stop laughing enough to actually stand up and help.

“I dunna understand your family; I thought we were getting along?” Merlin asks him, as Michelle walks into the room.

“Russians.” Eggsy says as explanation. His mother rolls her eyes and, once Eggsy is sufficiently distracted by crawling around the back of the Christmas tree to fiddle with the lights once more, hands Merlin the box with the stand alone Christmas decorations, and enlists his help.

“Lee used to say the same thing to me. Anytime his family did anything weird, he’d tell me it’s because they’re Russian. That, Merlin, is a lie.” She says, as they walk down the hallway. They pass a room full of aging Russian spies, all of whom fall conspicuously silent as they pass. Half of them are pretending as though the view from the window is the most interesting thing they’ve ever seen, and the other half are glaring blankly at Merlin as he and Michelle walk past.

“The real reason is that they’re spies, which seems to go hand in hand with a ridiculous penchant for drama and theatrics.” She grins cheekily at him, and Merlin can see the resemblance between mother and son.

“Aye, I might have noticed something similar, myself.” He says. “Working with them will drive you slowly insane, let me tell you. But it does lead to some... amusing sights.”

“Lord, I couldn’t even imagine.”

“You don’t have to - I’ve video evidence.” 

There’s a wicked glint in her eyes, as they finally reach the dining room where Michelle plans to set up a Christmas centrepiece.

“Really?”

“Mmhm. These spies might think they’ve a monopoly on the dramatic but I promise, they don’t have a stranglehold on embarrassment.”

“I feel a Christmas miracle coming on, Merlin.”

Their matching, shark like grins cause Eggsy to do an about face and decide that his mum and Merlin really don’t need his help, and that maybe he should find some sort of underground bunker to wait out the Christmas season. Surely that’s safer than whatever his partner and mother are planning.

As he walks past the room full of plotting Russians, he’s pulled inside.

“Sasha?” His Uncle Mishka asks, concerned with Eggsy’s wide eyes and nervous demeanor.

“Collusion!” He hisses, “Abort mission!” he doesn’t know what their current mission is - last he heard, it was to annoy Merlin into designing them some new gadgets to play with - they’ll be delighted with their presents, Eggsy knows - but that was a few months ago.

“What?” Zhenka says, peeking his head around the doorway, before stumbling away and finding a seat.

“Oh no.” He groans, head in his hands.

“What?” Mishka demands, face turning stormy.

“Merlin’s enlisted Michelle.” A general sense of unease permeates the group. They all love Michelle, of course, but the truth is, she’s fundamentally different from them in a multitude of ways which they can never quite comprehend. Which means that she’s unpredictable. Which has lead to scenarios such as Maria’s favoured knife leaving a trail of glitter, which never quite seems to leave, no matter how much she cleans it. There are several very confused medical examiners who’ve found glitter inside fatal stab wounds. Then there was the time Zhenka didn’t realise she’d sewn an adorable looking bunny onto the back of his favourite sweater, and wore it to an interrogation.

Never anything harmful, or malicious. Just… embarrassing. 

“I remember Siberia being quite nice this time of year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Et voilà; la fin~!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I really am sorry about the time gap. I just completely lost all motivation for Kingsman stuff, but it's returned, at least for now :) Thanks for sticking with me. I've been so appreciative of all your comments, and have absolutely loved every one of them. Reading them helped give me the little kick I needed to finish this last part off. Have a good day, friends <3


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